LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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MRS. BROWNING'S 



BIRTHDAY BOOK. ' 



EDITED BY 

R. H. STODDARD. 



" Poet^ doubt yourself : 
But never doubt that you'' re d poet to me 
From henceforth. Ah^you^ve luritten poems, sweety 
Which moved me in secret^ as the sap is inaved 
In still March branches, signless as a stojs^y 



DEC 301882 



NEW YORE 

JAMES MILLER, 



^S^^i 







^y 



Copyright 
1882 
By JAMES MILLER 



PREFACE. 



If I could have foreseen the difficulty which 
I have experienced in mailing this Birthday- 
Book, I think I should have shrunk from it. I 
was familiar with the poetry of Mrs. Brown- 
ing, — as who that reads is not ? — but it was with 
her poetry as a whole, and not in parts, which, 
and which only, such a Book demands. I 
knew that she was the greatest woman poet 
that England had ever produced, but I did not 
know that it might not be easy to make as 
many extracts from her writings as there are 
days in the year. Whether they would bear 
such a test remained to be seen. I read them 
over and over with that object in mind, and 
the more I read them the more I was convinced 
that they would not suffer, but would appear 
io advantage through extracts ; for it is the 
peculiarity of her genius, if I rightly apprehend 
it, to manifest itself more strongly in single 
paragraphs than in complete poems. Wreak- 
ing herself upon expression, she was always 



original,and often striking, snatching in the rush 
of inspiration the divine something which is 
poetry, the grace beyond the reach of art, the 
thoughts that breathe and words that burn. It 
was chiefly those I sought, and these I have ob- 
tained, I hope, in a measure. I had another 
object in view, however, and as it has not 
hitherto had due recognition in Birthday Books 
(jnejudice) I pursued that at the same time. 
That object was to compose a Calendar which 
should not only be interesting on account of 
the persons whose births and deaths it chron- 
icled, but should also be interesting on account 
of the light which might be shed upon these 
persons by the writings of Mrs. Browning. One 
always likes to know (I reasoned) the personal 
opinions of an eminent poet, whether they are 
concerning the contemporaries of the poet, or 
whether they are concerning those whom the 
world has agreed (for whatever reason) to can- 
onize in its remembrance. I found more per- 
sonal illustrations — if I may call them such — 
in Mrs. Browning than I had anticipated, and 
more, I feel sure, than could be found in any 
poet of the present century, They belonged to 



and grew out of her life and habits, — her life, 
which was confined for so many years within 
the walls of her own chamber, and her habits, 
which were those of a student. She may 
have loved Nature, but love of Nature is 
not a predominating quality in her writings. 
She did not have Tennyson's magical touches 
of light and hints of color, and she was devoid 
of Wordsworth's singular insight into natural 
things. Books were the spectacles through 
which she saw ; even her emotions were schol- 
arly. But I must not allow criticism to be- 
guile me from my purpose, which is to state as 
simply as I can the principles by which I was 
governed in making these selections. They 
have cost me a world of labor, which I do not 
regret, and which I trust has not been wasted, 
since it was a labor of love, undertaken in 
honor of Mrs. Browning, whom it presents for 
the first time in a form that is universally 
popular. That I have studied her carefully 
will be apparent, I think, to all her ad- 
mirers, to some of whom a portion of the ex- 
cerpts that follow will probably be new. I do 
not refer so much to ''The Book of the Poets " 



and ** The Greek Christian Poets,'' as to .her 
Letters to Richard Hengist Home (which have 
been printed rather than pubHshed), and to 
other letters (not pubHshed) addressed by her 
nearly forty years ago to an American man of 
letters, who was the first of his countrymen to 
recognize the great gifts of Miss Elizabeth Bar- 
rett Barrett; and who was largely instru- 
mental in the first publication of her poems 
in America. 
The Century, Aug. lo, 1882, 

R H. S. 



THE GALAXY, 

Methinks this is the zodiac of the earthy 
Which rounds tis 7vith its visionary dread^ 
Responding with twelve shadoivy signs of earthy 
In fantasqiie apposition arid approach, 
To those celestial, constellated twelve 
Which palpitate adown the silent nights 
Uttder the prrssitJ'e of the hand of God 
Stretched wide in benediction. At this hour, 
Not a star pricket h the flat gloom of heaven I 
But, gir'dling close .our nether wilderness, 
The zodiac figur'cs of the ear'tJi loom slow,-^ 
Drawn out, as suiteth with the place and time, 
I'n twelve colossal shades instead of stars, 
Thr'ough which the eclipfi: line of mystery 
Strikes bleakly with an unr'elcnting scope, 
For-e showing life a7id death. — A Drama of Exile. 



January i. 

Mortal man and woman, 

Go upon your travel ! 
Heaven assist the human 

Smoothly to unravel 
All that web of pain 

Wherein ye are holden. 
Do ye know our voices 

Chanting down the Golden ? 

A DRAMA OF EXILE, 



January 2. 

Or oft, abrupt though tender, 

While ye gazed on space, 
We flashed our angel-splendor 

In either human face. 
With mystic lilies in our hands, 
From the atmospheric bands 
Breaking with a sudden grace, 

We took you unaware ! 

A PRAMA OF EXILE. 
2- 



January i. 

Born. — Soame Jenyns, 1704. 

Baron Franz Von Trenck, 17 10. 

G. A. Burger, 1748. 

Maria Edge worth, 1767. 
Died, — Louis XII. of France, 1515. 

W. Wycherley, 1716. 

G. A. Helvetius, 1772. 

Silvio Pellico, 1854. 



January 2. 

^<?r«.— Edmund Burke, 1730. 

General James Wolfe, 1727, 
Died. — Publius Ovidius Naso, 18. 

Titius Livius, 18. 

John Mason Good, 1827. 



January 3. 

Or, whenever twilight drifted 

Through the cedar masses, 

The globed sun we lifted. 
Trailing purple, trailing gold 

Out between the passes 
Of the mountains manifold, 

To anthems slowly sung ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



January 4. 

Leave us to walk the remnant of our time 
Out mildly in the desert. Do not seek 
To harm us any more or scoff at us, 
Or ere the dust be laid upon our face 
To find there the communion of the dust 
And issue of the dust. — Go. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



January 3. 

Born, — Marcus Tullius Cicero, B. C. 107. 

Douglas Jerrold, 1803. 
Z>zV^.— George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, 1676. 

Josiah Wedgwood, 1795. 

Charles Robert Maturin, 1842, 

Eliot Warburton, 1852. 



January 4. 

Born. — Archbishop Usher, 1580. 

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm, 1785. 
Died. — Charlotte Lennox, 1804. 

Rachel Felix, 1858. 



January 5. 

The prodigy 
Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes 
Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. 
I think that thou hast one day worn a crown 
Under the eyes of God. 

A bRAMA OF EXILE. 



'January 6. 

None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair ! 
None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet ! 
And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. 
Look on me, woman ! Am I beautiful ? 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



January 5. 

Born.— Benjamin Rush, 1745. 

Thomas Pringle, 1789. 
Died. — Edward the Confessor, 1066. 

Catherine de' Medici, 1589. 

Isaac Reed, 1807. 

Marshal Radetsky, 1858. 



January 6. 

Born.— Richard II, King of England, 1366. 

Joan d'Arc, 1402. 

Pietro Metastasio, 1698. 

Benjamin Franklin, 1706. 

Charles Sumner, 181 1. 
Died. — John Dennis, 1734. 
^ Madame D'Arblay, 1840. 

James Smith, 1840. 

Fanny Wright, 1853, 



January 7. 

*' What ! dost thou judge it a strange thing 
That poets, crowned for vanquishing, 
Should bear some dust from out the ring ? " 

** Com.e on with me, come on with me ; 
And learn in coming. Let me free 
Thy spirit into verity." 

A VISION OF POETS. 



January 8. 

Oh, we spirits fly at will. 

Faster than the winged steed 

"Whereof in old book we read. 

With the sunlight foaming back 

From his flanks to a misty wrack. 

And his nostrils reddening proud 

As he breasteth the steep thunder-cloud ! 

THE soul's travelling 



January 7. 

Born.— Robert Nichcll, 1814. 
D2ed.—F6nelon de la Mothe, 1715, 
Allan Ramsay, 1757, 



January 8. 



£>zed. — Galileo Galilei, 1462. 

James Baskerville^ 17570 



January 9. 

Very fast and smooth we fly, 
Spirits, though the flesh be by. 
All looks feed not from the eye, 
Nor all hearings from the ear ; 
We can hearken and espy 
Without either ; we can journey, 
Bold and gay as knight to tourney. 

THE soul's travelling. 



January 10. 

Thou art unperplext, 
Dear friend, in whose dear writing drops the dew 
And blow the natural airs ; thou who art next 
To nature's self in cheering the world's view. 
To preach a sermon on so known a text ! 

SONNETS. 



10 



January 9. 

Born. — George Luther Stearns, 1809. 
Died. — Bernard de Fontenelle, 1657. 

Elizabeth O. Benger, 1822. 

Caroline Lucretia Herschel, 1841, 



January io. 

Born. — Dr. George Birkbeck, 1776. 
Died. — Archbishop Laud, 1645. 

Edward Cave, 1754. 

Linnaeus, 1778. 

Mary Russell Mitford, 1855. 



January ii. 

Beloved Shakespeare ! England's dearest Fame! 
Dead is the breast that swells not at thy name! 
Whether thine Ariel skim the seas along, 
Floating on wings ethereal as his song — 
Lear rave amid the tempest — or Macbeth 
Question the hags of hell on midnight heath — 
Immortal Shakespeare ! still thy lips impart 
The noblest comment on the human heart. 



ESSAY ON MIND 



January 12. 

His aimless thoughts in metre w^ent, 

Like a babe's hand v/ithout intent 

Drawn down a seven-stringed instrument. 

Nor jarred it with his humor as, 
With a faint stirring of the grass, 
An apparition fair did pass. 

A VISION OF POETS 



January ii. 

Born, — Francesco Mazzuoli Parmigiano, 1503. 

Bayard Taylor, 1825. 
Died. — Sir Hans Sloane, 1754. 

Fran9ois Ravaillac, 1762. 

Dominic Cimarosa, i8or. 

F. SchlegeL 1829. 



January 12. 



Born. — John Winthrop, 1588. 

Died. — The Emperor Maximilian I., 1519, 

J. C. Lavater, 1801. 

Dean Henry Alford, 1876. 



January ij. 

Thy burning eyes already are 
Grown wild and mournful as a star 
Whose occupation is for aye 
To look upon the place of clay 
Whereon thou lookest now ! 

THE SERAPHIM. 



January 14. 

Lo ! Berkeley proves an old hypothesis ! 

** Out on the senses ! " (he was out of his !) 

" All is idea ! and nothing real springs 

But God and reason " — (not the right of kings ?). 

ESSAY ON MIND. 



14 



January 13. 

Born. — Charles James Fox, 1748. 
Died. — George Fox, 1690. 
Earl of Eldon, 1838. 



January 14. 

Born. — Prince Adam Czartoryski, 17700 
Died. — Madame de Sevign^, 1696. 

Edmund Halley, 1742. 

Bishop Berkeley, 1753. 



15 



January 15. 

I plant a tree whose leaf 

The yew-tree leaf will suit ; 
But when its shade is o'er you laid, 

Turn round and- pluck the fruit ! 

THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET . 



January 16. 

Let Gibbon's name be traced, in sorrow, here,— 
Too great to spurn, too little to revere ! 
Who followed Reason, yet forgot her laws, 
And found all causes, but the great First Cause. 



ESSAY ON MIND, 



16 











T^A -^'tifc--^^S 



January 15. 

Born. — Dr. Samuel Parr, 1747. 

Dr. John Aikin, 1747. 

Fran9ois Joseph Talma, 1763. 

Thomas Crofton Croker, 1798. 
Died. — Father Paul Sarpi, 1623. 

Sir Philip Warwick, 1683. 



January i6. 

Born. — Richard Savage, 1697. 
Died. — Edmund Spenser, 1599, 

Edward Gibbon, 1794. 

Sir John Moore, 1809. 

Edmund Lodge, 1839. 



17 



January 17. 

The maidens lean them over 

The waters, side by side, 
And shun each other's deepening eyes, 

And gaze adown the tide : 
For each within a little boat 

A little lamp hath put, 
And heaped for freight some lily's weight, 

Of scarlet rose half shut. 

ROMANCE OF THE GANGES. 



January 18. 

And still I laughed and did not fear 
But that, whene'er was passed away 
The childish time, some happier play 
My womanhood would cheer. 

THE DESERTED GARDEN. 



18 



January 17. 

Born. — George Lord Lyttleton, 1709. 

Victor Alfieri, 1749. 
Died.— ]o\in Ray, 1705. 

Bishop Home, 1792. 



January i8. 

Born. — Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, 'i6B% 

Dr. John Gillies, 1747. 
Died. — Sir Samuel Garth, 1719. 

James Baskerville, 1775. 

Sarah, Countess of Exeter, 1792. 



19 



January 19. 

'Neath my moon what doest thou, 
With a somewhat paler brow 
Than she giveth to the ocean ? 
He, without a pulse or motion, 
Muttering low before her stands, 
Lifting his invoking hands. 
Like a seer before a sprite, 
To catch her oracles of light.' 

NIGHT AND THE MEPRY MAN, 



January 20. 

They say that God lives very high. 
But if you look above the pines 
You cannot see our God. And why ? 

And if you dig down in the mines 
Y^ou never see Him in the gold, 
Though from Him all that's glory shines. 
A child's thought of god. 



20 



January 19. 

Born. — Nicholas Copernicus, 1472. 

James Watts, 1736. 
Died. — Charles, Earl of Dorset, 1706, 

William Congreve, 1729. 

Isaac Disraeli, 1848. 



January 20. 

Born. — Frederick, Prince of Wales, 17070 

Jean Jacques Barthelemy, 1716. 

N. P. Willis, 1806. 
Z>/V<^.— Cardinal Bembo, 1547. 

Charles VII. Emperor, 1745. 

David Garrick, 1779. 

John Howard, 1790. 



^I 



January 21. 

Deathful their faces were, and yet 
The power of life was in them set — 
Never forgot, nor to forget. 



A VISION OF POETS. 



January 22. 

"'•Angel of the sin, 
Such as thou standest, — pale in the drear light 
Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath, - 
Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls ; 
A monumental melancholy gloom 
Seen down all ages, whence to mark despair 
And measure out the distances from good ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



January 21. 

Born. — Henry VII., King of England, 1456.. 

Thomas Lord Erskine, 1750. 
Died. — Miles Coverdale, 1568. 

Joseph Scaliger, 1609. 

James Quin, 1766. 

J. H. Bernardin de St. Pierre, 1814. 

Henry Hallam, 1859. 



January 22, 

Born. — Francis Bacon, 1561. 

Sir Robert Cotton, 1570, 

P. Gassendi, 1592. 

Gotthold Lessing, 1729. 

George Gordon Lord Byron, 
Died. — George Steevens, 1800, 

John F. Blumenbach, 1840. 

Richard Westall, 1850. 



23 



January 23. 

Life treads on life, and heart on heart. 
We press too close in church and mart, 
To keep a dream or grave apart. 



A VISION OF POETS, 



-9-^ "4 



January 24. 

These faces were not multiplied 
Beyond your count, but side by side 
Did front the altar, glorified. 

Still as a vision, yet expressed 
Full as an action — look and gest 
Of buried saint in unseen rest. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



24 



January 23. 

Born. — 

Z>?>^.— James, Earl of Moray, 1570. 

William Pitt, 1806. 

Sir Francis Burdett, 1844. 

Archdeacon Hare, 1855. 



January 24. 

Born. — Charles, Earl of Dorset, 1637. 

Frederick the Great, 17 12. 

Pierre A. Caron de Beaumarchais, 1732. 
Z>zV^.— Justice Henry Yelverton, 1650. 

James Ralph, 1762. 



25 



January 25. 

And Burns, with pungent passionings 
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs 
Are of the fire-mount's issuings. 



A VISION OF POETSo 



January 26. 

Let Jeffrey's praise our willing pen engage, 
The letter'd critic of a letter'd age ! 
Who justly judges, rightfully discerns, 
With. wisdom teaches, and with candor learns. 
His name on Scotia's brightest tablet lives. 
And proudly claims the laurel that it gives. 



ESSAY ON MIND, 



26 



January 25. 

Born. — Robert Boyle, 1627. 

Thomas Tanner, 1674, 

Paul Whitehead, 1709. 

Robert Burns, 1759. 

James Hog-g-, 1772. 

Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1786. 

Daniel Maclise, 1811. 
Died. — George Selwyn, 1791. ^ 

William Shield, 1829. 



Janua*ry 26. 

Born. — Lord George Sackville, 1716. 

Bernadotte, King of Sweden, 1764, 

Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1795. 
Z>z>^.— Dr. E. Jenner, 1823. 

Francis Jeffrey, 1850. 

Adam Gottlob Ochenschlager, 1850, 



27 



January 27. 

His organ^s clavier strikes along 
These poets' hearts, sonorous, strong, 
They gave him v^dthout count of wrong, — 

A diapason whence to guide 
, Up to God's feet, from these who died, 
An anthem fully glorified. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



January 28. 

Glory and life 
Fulfil their own depletions : and if God 
Sighed you far from Him, His next breath drew in 
A compensative splendor up the vast, 
Flushing the starry arteries ! 



A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



28 



January 27. 

Born.—]. C. W. A. Mozart, 1756, 
Died. — Sir William Temple, 1699. 
John James Audubon 1851,, 



January 28. 

Born. — Captain Maclure, 1807. 
Died. — Charlemagne, 814. 

Henry VIII., 1547. 

Sir Francis Drake, 1596. 

Sir Thomas Bodley, 1612. 

Peter the Great, 1725. 

Hester Johnson {Stella)^ 1728a 

Mile. Clairon, 1803. 

Sir William Beechey, 1839. 

W. H. Prescott, 1859. 

29 



January 29. 

I sit upon a cypress bough, 
Close to the gate, and I fling my song 
Over the gate and through the mail 
Of the warden angels marshalled strong, — 
Over the gate and after you ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILEo 



January 30. 

In my large joy of sight and touch 
Beyond what others count for such, 
I am content to suffer much. 

*' / know — is all the mourner saith, 
Knowledge by suffering entereth ; 
And Life is perfected by Death ! " 

A VISION OF POETS. 
30 



January 29. 

Born.— Emmanuel de Swedenborg, 1688-9. 

Thomas Paine, 1737. 

William Sharp, 1749. 
D/ed. — Emperor Aurelian, 275. 

J. T. Fichte, 1814. 

George III., 1820. 

Miss Agnes Berry, 1852. 

Mrs. Catharine Grace Frances Gore, 1861. 



January ;^o. 



Born. — Charles Rollin, 1661. 

Walter Savage Landor, 1775. 
Died. — William Chillingworth, 1644, 

Charles I., 1649, 



31 



January 31., 

The essence of all beauty, I call love. 
The attribute, the evidence, and end, 
The consummation to the inward sense, 
Of beauty apprehended from without, 
I still call love. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE, 




32 



January 31. 

Born. — Ben Jonson, 1574. 

Died. —Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 17 



^^. 




m^^^ 



33 



February i. 

Was I not, that hour, 
The lady of the world, princess of life, 
Mistress of feast and favor? Could I touch 
A rose with my white hand, but it became 
Redder at once ? Could I walk leisurely 
Along our swarded garden, but the grass 
Tracked me with greenness ? Could I stand aside 
A moment underneath a cornel-tree, 
But all the leaves did tremble as alive 
With songs of fifty birds who were made glad 
Because I stood there ? 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



February 2. 

And I build my song of high pure notes, 
Note after note, height over height, 
Till I strike the arch of the Infinite, 
And I bridge abysmal agonies 
With strong, clear calms of harmonies — 
And something abides, and something floats, 
In the song which I sing after you. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



34 



February i. 

Born.— Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice, 1551-2. 

John PhiHp Kemble, 1757. 
D/ed. —Pope Alexander VIII., 1691. 

Dr. John Lempriere, 1793. 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1851. 



February 2. 

Born. — John Nichols, 1744. 

Died. — Baldassarre Castiglione, 1529. 

Giovanni di Palestrini, 1594. 

Francis Hayman, 1776. 

Dr. Olinthus G. Gregory, 1841, 



February 3. 

The battle hurtles on the plains, 

Earth feels new scythes upon her. 
We reap our brothers for the wains, 

And call the harvest . . honor ; 
Draw face to face, front line to line, 

One image all inherit — 
Then kill, curse on, by that same sign. 

Clay, clay — and spirit, spirit. 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 



February 4. 

I would rather take my part 
With God's Dead, who afford to walk in white 
Yet spread his glory, than keep quiet here, 
And gather up my feet from even step. 
For fear to soil my gown in so much dust. 
I choose to walk at all risks. 

AURORA LEIGIIo 



36 



February 3. 

Born.— Henry Cromwell, 1627. 

Died. — John of Gaunt, 1399. 

Charles X. of Sweden, i 
Richard Nash, 1761. 



February 4. 

Born. — George Lillo, 1693. 

Died. — Lucius Septimus Severus, 211. 

John Rogers, 1555. 

Giambattista Porta, 1615. 

Rev. Robert Blair, 1746. 

Charles de la Condamine, 1774. 



February 5. 

I^t takes a soul, 
To move a body : it takes a high-soiiled man 
To jnove the masses . . even to a cleaner stye : 
It takes the ideal, to blow a hair's breadth off 
The dust of the actual. — Ah, your Fouriers failed, 
Because not poets enough to understand 
That life develops from within. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



February 6. 

We meet together at the feast. 

To private mirth betake us ; 
We stare down in the winecup, lest 

Some vacant chair should shake us. 
We name delight, and pledge it round — 

*' It shall be ours to-morrow ! " 
God's seraphs, do your voices sound 

As sad in naming sorrow ? 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN, 

38 



February 5. 

Born. — Dr. John Lingard, 1771, 
Sir Robert Peel, 1778. 

Died. — Marcus Cato, b. c. 46. 

Dr. William Cullen, 1790, 
Lewis Galvani, 1759. 
General Paoli, 1807, 



February 6. 

Born. — Anne, Queen of England, 1665. 
Augustine Calmet, 1672. 

Died. — Jacques Amyot, ^593. 

Charles II. King of England, 16 
Dr. Joseph Priestley, 1804. 



39 



February 7. 

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 

Why their tears are falling so ? 
The old man may weep for his to-morrow 

Which is lost in Long Ago. 
The old tree is leafless in the forest, 

The old year is ending in the frost, 
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, 

The old hope is hardest to be lost. 
But the young, young children, O my brothers. 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, 

In our happy Fatherland ? 

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 



February 8. 



She looked a queen who seemeth gay 
From royal grace alone. '' Now, nay," 
He answered — *' slumber passed away, 

'^Compelled by instincts in my head 
That I should see to-night, instead 
Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread." 

She looked up quickly to the sky 
And spake : — '' The moon's regality 
Will hear no praise ! she is as I." 

A VISION OF POETG. 
40 



February 7. 

Born. — Charles Dickens, 1812. 

Died. — Anne Radcliffe, 1823. 

Henry Neele, 1828. * 

Louis Antoine Fauvet dc Bourrienne, 1834. 



February 8. 



Born. — Samuel Butler, 1612. 

Peter Daniel Huet, 1630. 
Died. —Mary, Queen of Scotland, 1586-7. 

Dr. Georg-e Sewell, 1727. 

Aaron Hill, 1750. 



41 



February 9. 

And when this company drew near 
The spirits crowned, it might appear 
Submitted to a ghastly fear. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



February 10. 

The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned 
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone, 
And so with me it must be, unless I prove 
Unworthy of the grand adversity — 
And certainly I would not fail so much. 
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day 
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it. 
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own 
To all the tender pricking of such leaves ? 

AUFOKA LEIGH. 
42 



February 9. 

Born.— Constantine F. C. Volncy, i' 
Died. — Agnes Sorel, 1450. 

David Rizzio, 1566. 

Henry Lord Darnley, 1507. 

Dr. John Gregory, 1773. 



February io. 

Born. — William Congreve, 1670. 

Aaron Hill, 1685. 

James Smith, 1775. 

Henry Hart Milman, 1791. 
Died. — Sir William Dugdale, 1686. 

Isaac Vossius, 1689. 

Charles de Secondat de Montesquieu, 1755, 

Samuel Prout, 1852. 



43 



February ii. 

Poets become such, 
Through scorning nothing. You decry them for 
The good of beauty, sung and taught by them, 
While they respect your practical partial good 
As being a part of beauty's self. Adieu ! 
When God helps all the workers for his world, 
The singers shall have help of Him, not last. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



February 12. 

Rise, woman, rise, 
To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill, 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good. 
And reconciling all that ill and good 
Unto the patience of a constant hope — 
Rise with thy daughters ! 



A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



44 



February ii. 

Bor7t.—M3.YY^ Queen of England, 1516. 

Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle, 16570 
Died. —Rene Descartes, 1650. 

William Shenstone, 1763. 

Macvey Napier, 1847. 



February 12. 

Born. — Dr. Cotton Mather, 1663. 

Elias de Crebillon, 1707. 

Edward Forbes, 1815. 
Died. -—Lady Jane Grey, 1555. 

George Heriot, 1624. 

Emmanuel Kant, 1804. 

Sir Astley Cooper, 1841, 



45 



February 13. 

We all begin 
By singing with the birds, and running fast 
With June-days, hand in hand : but once, for all, 
The birds must sing against us, and the sun 
Strike down upon us like a friend's sword caugnt 
By an enemy to slay us, while we read 
The dear name on the blade which bites at us ! — 
That^s bitter and convincing : after that, 
We seldom doubt that something in the large, 
Smooth order of creation, though no more 
Than haply a man's footsteps, has gone wrong. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



February 14. 

What are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil ; 

Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines. 

For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, 

And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 

God did anoint thee with his odorous oil. 

To wrestle, not to reign ; and He assigns 

All thy tears over, like pure crystallines. 

For younger fellow-workers of the soil 

To wear for amulets. So others shall 

Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand. 

From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, 

And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 

The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand, 

And share its dew-drop with another near. 

BONNETS. 



February 13. 

Born. — David Allan, 1744. 

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, 

1754- 
Died. — Benvenuto Cellini, 1576. 

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, 1662. 
Dr. Cotton Mather, 1728. 
Sharon Turner, 1847, 



February 14, 

Born. — Camille, Duke de Tallard, 1552. 

Archdeacon Waterland, 1683. 
Died. — Pope Innocent I., 417. 

Richard II., King of England, 1400. 

Captain James Cook, 1779. 

Sir William Blackstone, 1870. 



47 



February 15. 

We overstate the ills of life, and take 
Imagination (given us to bring dow^n 
The choirs of singing angels overshone 
By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake 
The dismal snows instead — flake following flake, 
To cover all the corn. We walk upon 
The shadow of hills across a level thrown, 
And pant like climbers. Near the alderbrake 
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within 
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. 
O brothers ! let us leave the shame and sin 
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, 
The holy name of Grief ! — holy herein, 
That, by the grief of One, came all our good. 

SONNETS. 



February 16. 



Of all the thoughts of God that are 
Borne inward unto souls afar, 
Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
Now tell me if that any is. 
For gift or grace, surpassing this — 
" He giveth His beloved sleep ? " 

THE SLEEP. 



February 15. 

Born.— Gnl'ileo Galilei, 1564. 

Louis XV. of France, 1710. 
Dz'ed. — John Philips, 1708. 

Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, 1713. 

Bishop Atterbury, 1732. 

Charelc Andrew Vanloo 1765. 



February i6. 

Born. — Piiilip Melancthon, 1497. 

Gaspard de Coligny, 1516. 

Baron Trenck, 1726. 
Died.—T>r. Richard Mead, 1754. 

Giovanni Baptista Casti, 180; 

Lindley Murray, 1826. 

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, 1857, 



49 



February 17. 

Amen, great Angelo ! the day's at hand. 
If many laugh not on it, shall we weep ? 

Much more v/e must not, let us understand. 
Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep. 

And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land, 
And sketchers lauding ruined towns a-heap — 

Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth, 
The hopeful bird mounts caroling from brake, 

The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth. 
Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake ! 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



February 18. 



Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not 

More grief than ye can weep for. That is well — 

That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell. 

Since Adam forfeited the primal lot. 

Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot, 

The mother singing ; at her marriage-bell 

The bride weeps ; and before the oracle 

Of high-faned hills, the poet has forgot 

Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace, 

Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done, 

Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place, (run 

And touch but tombs, — look up ! Those tears will 

Soon in long rivers down the lifted face. 

And leave the vision clear for stars and sun. 

SONNETS. 
50 



February i^j. 

^(?r;2.— Francis, Duke of Guise, 1519. 

Horace Benedict de Saussure, 1740. 

John Pinkerton, 1758. 
Died. — Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 1565-4. 

Giordano Brnno, 1600. 

Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, if^.73. 

Antoine Galland, 1715. 

John Martin, 1854. 

John Braham, 1856. 



February i8. 

Born. — Isaac Casaubon, 1559. 

James Cassini, 1677. 

Alexander Volta, 1745. 

Charles Lamb, 1775. 
Died. — Martin Luther, 1546. 

Jean Louis de Balzac, 1654, 

Baron von Biela, 1856. 



51 



February 19. 

Five months ago, the stream did flow. 

The lilies bloomed within the sedge ; 
And we were lingering to and fro, — 
Where none will track thee in this snow, 

Along the stream, beside the hedge. 
Ah, sweet, be free to love and go I 

For if I do not hear thy foot. 

The frozen river is as mute. 

The flowers have dried down to the root ; 
And why, since these be changed since May, 
Shouldst ^kou change less than tkey .^ 

CHANGE UPON CHANGE. 



February 20. 



I scorn you that ye wail. 
Who use your petty griefs for pedestals 
To stand on, beckoning pity from without, 
And deal in pathos of antithesis 
Of what ye were forsooth, and what ye are : — 
I scorn you like an angel ! Yet, one cry 
I, too, would drive up like a column erect. 
Marble to marble, from my heart to Heaven, 
A monument of anguish to transpierce 
And overtop your vapory complaints 
Expressed from feeble woes ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 
52 



February 19. 

Born. — Nicholas Copernicus, 1475. 

Richard Cumberland, 1732. 

Sir Roderick I. Murchison, 1792. 
Died. — Elizabeth Carter, 1806. 

Bernard Barton, 1849. 

Sir William Napier, 18^0. 



February 20. 

Born. — Fran9ois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 1694. 

David Garrick, 1716. 
Died. — Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, 1737. 

Dr. John Moore, 1802. 

Andreas Hofer, 1810. 

Joseph Hume, 1855. 



53 



February 21. 

Eternity stands alway fronting God ; 

A stern colossal image, with blind eyes 

And grand dim lips that murmur evermore 

God, God, God ! While the rush of life and death, 

The roar of act and thought, of evil and good. 

The avalanches of the ruining worlds 

Tolling down space, — the new world's genesis 

Budding in fire, — the gradual humming growth 

Of the ancient atoms and first forms of earth, 

The slow procession of the swathing seas 

And firmamental waters, — and the noise 

Of the broad, fluent strata of pure airs, — 

All these flow onward in the intervals 

Of that reiterated sound of — God ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



February 22. 



And all should be hope, and nothing fear, in 
America. You have room there for whole choruses 
of poets — autochthones — singing out of the ground. 
You, with your Niagara for a Hippocrene, and 
your silent cities of the woods, too old from ruins ; 
and your present liberties ; and your aspirations 
filling the future. 

MS. LETTERS. 

54 



February 21. 

Born. — Mrs. Anne Grant, 1755. 
Z>zV^.— Caius Caesar Agrippa, 4. 

Robert Southwell, 1595. 

Secretary John Thurloe, 1668, 

Benedict de Spinoza, 1677. 

Rev. Robert Hall, 1831. 



February 22. 

Born.—Dv. Richard Price, 1725. 

George Washington, 1732. 

Gilbert Wakefield, 1756. 
Died. — James Barry, 1806. 

Dr. Adam Ferguson, i826„ 

Rev. Sydney Smith, 1845, 



55 



February 23. 

I soar — I am drawn up like the lark 
To its white cloud ; So high my mark, 
Albeit my wing is small and dark. 

I ask no wages — seek no fame ; 

Sew me, for shroud round face and name, 

God's banner of the oriflamme. 

I only would have leave to loose 
(In tears and blood, if so He choose) 
Mine inward music out to use. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



February 24. 

What is this thought or thing 

Which I call beauty ? is it thought or thing ? 

Is it a thought accepted for a thing? 

Or both ? or neither — a pretext ? — a word ? 

Its meaning flutters in me like a flame 

Under my own breath : my perceptions reel 

For evermore around it, and fall off, 

As if it were too holy. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 

And Keats, the real 

Adonis, with the hymneneal 

Fresh vernal buds half sunk between 

His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen 

In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

56 



February 23. 

Born. — Samuel Pepys, 1632. 

William Mason, 1725. 
Died. — Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1555. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1792. 

Dr. Joseph Warton, 1800. 

Joanna Baillie, 1851. 



February 24. 

Born.— 'So\iVL Pico, Count of Mirandola, 1463, 

George Frederick Handel, 1682. 

James Quin, 1693. 

Robert, Lord Give, 1726. 
Died. — Francis, Duke of Guise, 1563. 

Charles Bonaparte, 1785. 

John Keats, 1821. 

Thomas Coutts, 1828. 



57 



February 25. 

O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us 

With rigid hands of desiccating praise, 
And drag us backward by the garment thus, 

To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays ! 
We will not henceforth be oblivious 

Of our own lives, because ye lived before, 
Nor of our acts, because ye acted well. 

We thank you that ye first unlatched the door — 
But will not make it inaccessible 

By thankings on the threshold any more. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



February 26. 

Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn, 

Besides thy heaven and Thee ! and when I say 
There's room here for the weakest man alive 

To live and die, — there's room, too, I repeat. 
For all the strongest to live well and strive, 

Their own way, by their individual heat, — 
Like a new bee-swarm leaving the old hive, 

Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 

58 



P^EBRUARY 25. 

Born.— G^rmsiin de St. Foix, 1703. 
Dz'ed. — William Lilly, 1523. 

Robert, Earl of Essex, 1600. 

Count Wallenstein, 1634. 

Sir Christopher Wren, 1723. 

Dr. William Buchan, 1805. 



February 26. 

^^r;?.— Anthony Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671 

Rev. James Hervey, 1714. 

Francois J. D. Arago, 1716. 

Victor Hugo, 1802. 
Dzed. — Robert Fabian, 1513. 

Thomas D'Urfey, 1723. 

John Philip Kemble, 1823. 

William Kitchiner, 1827. 

Sir William Allan, 1850. 

Thomas Mocre, 1852. 



59 



February 27. 

And you may hear, at the self-same thne, 
Another poet who reads his rhyme, 
Low as a brook in the summer air, — 
Save when he droppeth his voice adown, 
To dream of the amaranthine crown 
His mortal brow% shall wear. 

SOUNDS. 



February 28. 



Rise, woman, rise 
To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill, 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, 
And reconciling all that ill and good 
Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 
Rise with thy daughters ! If sin come by thee, 
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness, 
The heavenly life and compensative rest 
Shall come by means of thee. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE 



60 



February 27. 

Born, — James Robinson Planche, 1796. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807. 
Died. — John Evelyn, 1706. 

Dr. John Arbiithnot, 1735. 

William Woolnoth, 1837. 



February 28. 



Born.—W\Qh.2£i de Montaigne, 1533. 

Died. — Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 1447. 

George Buchanan, 1552. 

Edward Moore, 1757. 



61 



February 29. 

Dear pity of God, 
That did st permit the angels to go home 
And live no more with us who are not pure, 
vSave MS from a too loathly company — 
Almost as loathly in our own eyes, perhaps, 
As we are in the purest ! Pity us. 

A DRAMA 'of EXILE 




February 29. 

^(?r??.— Edward Cave, 1692. 

Gioacchino Rossini, 1792, 
Died. --John Landseer, 1852. 




63 



March i. 

Of writing many books there is no end ; 
And I have written much in prose and verse 
For others' uses, will write now for mine, — 
Will write my story for my better self, 
As when you paint your portrait for a friend, 
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it 
Long after he has ceased to love you, just 
To hold together what he was and is. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 2. 

Mark, there. We get no good 
By being ungenerous, even to a book. 
And calculating profits . . so much help 
By so much reading. It is rather when 
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 
'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

64 



March i. 

Born,— Caroline of England, 1683. 

Sir Samuel Romilly, 1757. 
Died. — Francois Rabelais, 1553. 

Anne, Queen of England, 1619. 

Mathias, Emperor of Germany, 1619. 



March 2. 

Born. — Decimus Junius Juvenalis, 40. 

Sir Thomas Bodley, 1544. 

William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, 1705. 
Died. — Solomon Gessner, 1788. 

John Wesley, 1791. 

Horace Walpole, 1797. 

Giambattista Rubin! , 1854. 



65 



March 3. 

My own best poets, am I one with you, 

That thus I love you, — or but one through love? 

Does all this smell of thyme about my feet 

Conclude my visit to your holy hill 

In personal presence, or but testify 

The rustling of your vesture through my dreams 

With influent odors? When my joy and pain, 

My thought and aspiration, like the stops 

Of pipe or flute, are absolutely dumb 

Unless melodious, do you play on me, 

My pipers, — and if, sooth, you did not blow, 

Would no sound come ? or is the music mine, 

As a man's voice or breath is called his own, 

Imbreathed by the Life-breather ? 

AURORA LEIGH. 

March 4. 

Many a crown 
Covers bald foreheads. In the book-world, true, 
There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings, 
That shake the ashes of the grave aside 
From their calm locks, and undiscomfited 
Look steadfast truths against Time's changing mask. 
True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ; 
True, many a seer pulls down the flaming heavens 
Upon his own head in strong martyrdom. 
In order to light men a moment's space. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

66 



March 3. 

Born. — Edmond Waller, 1605. 

Sir William Davenant, 1606. 

Thomas Otway, 1651. 

William Godwin, 1756. 

W. C. Macready, 1793. 
Died. — George Herbert, 1633. ' ' 

Dr. William Hunter, 1783. 

Copley Fielding, 1855. 

Dr. Forbes Winslow, 1874. 



March 4. 

Born. — Dom Pedro, of Portugal, 1394. 

Lord Chancellor Somers, 1652. 
Died. — Saladin, 1193. 

Bernard Gilpin, 1583. 

Rev. Thomas Seward, 1790. 

Thomas Rickman, 1841. 



67 



March 5. 

The cygnet finds the water ; but the man 
Is born in ignorance of his element, 
And feels out blind at first, disorganized 
By sin i' the blood, — his spirit-insight dulled 
And crossed by his sensations. Presently 
He feels it quicken in the dark sometimes ; 
Then mark, be reverent, be obedient, — 
For such dumb motions of imperfect life 
Are oracles of vital Deity 
Attesting the Hereafter. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 6. 

As the earth 
Plunges in fury, when the internal fires 
Have reached and pricked her heart, and, throwing 

flat 
The marts and temples, the triumphal gates 
And towers of observation, clears herself 
To elemental freedom — thus, my soul, 
At poetry's divine first finger touch 
Let go conventions and sprang up surprised 
Convicted of the great eternities 
Before two worlds. 

AURORA LEIGHo 

68 



March 5. 

Born. — Dr. George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, 

1660. 
Z)z>i/. —Henry, Earl of Holland, 1649. 
Bishop Beveridge, 1708. 
Dr. Thomas Arne, 1778. 
Alexander Volta, 1827. 
M. J. B. Orfila, 1853. 



March 6. 

Born. — Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 1474. 

Francisco Guicciardini, 1482. 

Bishop Francis Atterbury, 1662. 

Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, 1786. 
Died. — Dr. Samuel Parr, 1825. 

Professor Heeren, 1842. 



6q 



March 7. 

Oft, the ancient forms 
Will thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood, 
The wine-skins, now and then, a little warped, 
Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in. 
Spare the old bottles ! — spill not the new wine. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 8. 

Many fervent souls 
Strike rhyme on rhyme, who would strike steel on 

steel 
If steel had offered, in a restless heat 
Of doing something. Many tender souls 
Have strung their losses on a rhyming thread, 
As children, cowslips : — the more pains they take. 
The work more withers. Young men, ay, and maids, 
Too often sow their wild oats in tame verse, 
Before they sit down under their own vine 
And live for use. Alas, near all the birds 
Will sing at dawn —and yet we do not take 
The chaffering swallow for the holy lark. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
. 70 



March 7. 

Born. — Antonio Sanchez, 1699. 
Died. — Antoninus Pius, 162. 

William Longsword, 1226. 

Admiral Lord Collingwood, : 



March 8. 



Born. — William Roscoe, 1753. 

Austin H. Layard, M.P., 1817. 

C. P. Cranch, 1813. 
Z>zV^.— King William III. of England, 1702. 

Sawney Gilpin, 1807. 

Joseph Jekyll, 1837. 

Karl Johann (Bemadotte), King of Sweden, 
1844. 



71 



March 9. 

Ay, masks, I thought— beware 
Of tragic masks, we tie before the glass, 
Uplifted on the cothurn half a yard 
Above the natural stature ! we would play 
Heroic parts to ourselves — and end, perhaps, 
As impotently as Athenian wives 
Who shrieked in fits at the Eumenides. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 10. 

Through heaven and earth 
God's will moves freely, and I follow it, 
As color follows light. He overflows 
The firmamental walls with deity. 
Therefore with love ; His lightnings go abroad. 
His pity may do so, His angels must, 
Whene'er he gives them charges. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



72 



March 9. 

Born. — Dr. Joseph Franz Gall, 1757. 

William Cobbeit, 1762. 
Died. — William Warner, 161 6. 

Francis Beaumont, 1616. 

William Guthrie, 1771. 

Dr. Edward David Clarke, 102 

Anne Letitia Barbauld. 



March io. 

Born. — Professor William Playfair, 1749. 

William Etty, 1787. 

E. H. Baily, RA., 1788, 
Died. — Heliogabalus, 222. 

Sir John Denham, 1668. 

Benjamin West, 1826. 



73 



March ii. 

Tasso ! bard and lover, 
Whose visions were too thin to cover 
The face of a false woman over. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

Hold me up — so ! Because I comprehend 
This human love, I shall not be afraid 
Of any human death ; and yet because 
I know this strength of love, I seem to know 
Death's strength by that same sign. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE, 



March 12. 

The best men, doing their best 
Know peradventure least of what they do : 
Men usefullest i' the world, are simply used ; 
The nail that holds the wood, must pierce it first ; 
And He alone who wields the hammer, sees 
The work advanced by the earliest blow. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



' 74 



March ii. 

Born. — Torquato Tasso, 1544. 

William Huskisson, 1770. 
Died. — John Toland, 1722. 

Hannah Cowley, 1809. 



March 12. 

Born. — Bishop George Berkeley, 1684. 

Thomas Buchanan Read, 1822. 
Died. — Caesar Borgia, 1568. 

Alessandro Piccolomini, 1578. 

Rev. Richard Polwhele, 1838, 



75 



March 13. 

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive. 
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame. 
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; 
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats^ 
And flare up boldly, wings and all. What then ? 
Who's sorry for a gnat . . or girl ? 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 14. 

This perhaps was love — 
To have its hands too full of gifts to give, 
For putting out a hand to take a gift ; 
To love so much, the perfect round of love 
Includes, in strict conclusion, the being loved ; 
As Eden-dew went up and fell again 
Enough for watering Eden. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



76 



March 13. 

Born. — Esther Johnson, 1681. 

Dr. Joseph Priestley, 1735. 

Joseph II., of Germany, 1741. 
Died. — Belisarius, 565. 

Jean de la Fontaine, 1695. 

Pierre Mignard, 1695. 

Nicholas Boileau, 171 1. 

Sophia Lee, 1824. 

Regina Maria Roche, 1845. 

Sir T. N. Talfourd, 1854. 



March 14. 

Born. — 

Died. — Admiral John Byng, 1757. 

William Melmoth, 1799. 

Frederick Theophilus Klopstock, 1803. 



77 



March 15. 

Alp and torrent shall inherit 

Your significance of will, 
And the grandeur of your spirit 

Shall our broad savannahs fill ; 
In our winds, your exultations shall be springing. 
Even your parlance which inveigles, 

By our rudeness shall be won. 
Hearts poetic in our eagles 

Shall beat up against the sun, 
And strike downward in articulate clear singing. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



March 16. 



Men and women make 
The world, as head and heart make human life. 
Work man, work woman, since there's work to do 
In this beleaguered earth, for head and heart. 
And thought can never do the work of love ! 
But work for ends, I mean for uses ; not 
For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends 
Still less God's glory) as we sew ourselves 
Upon the velvet of those baldaquins 
Held 'twixt us and the sun. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

78 



March 15. 

Born. — General Andrew Jackson, 1767. 
Died. — Julius Csesar, b. c. 44. 

Rev. Thomas Francklin, 1784. 

Admiral John Jervis, Earl St. Vincent, 1825. 

John Liston, 1846. 

Otto Kotzebue, 1846. 

Cardinal Mezzofanti, 1849. 



March i6. 

^<?r;2.— Jacques Boileau, 1631. 

Lucretia Herschel, 1750. 

Madame Campan, 1752. 
Died. — Tiberius Claudius Nero, 37. 

Lord Beners, 1532. 

Richard Burbage, 1618-19. 



79 



March 17. 

What form is best for poems ? Let me think 

Of forms less, and the external. Trust the spirit, 

As sovran nature does, to make the form ; 

For otherwise we only imprison spirit, 

And not embody. Inward evermore 

To outward — so in life, and so in art, 

Which still is life. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 18. 

We play at leap-frog over the god Term ; 

The love within us and the love without 

Are mixed, confounded ; if we are loved or love, 

We scarce distinguish. So, v/ith other power. 

Being acted on and acting seem the same : 

In that first onrush of life's chariot-wheels, 

We know not if the forests move or we. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



80 



March 17. 

Born. — Francesco Albano^ 1578. 

Carsten Niebuhr, 1733, 

Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers, 1780, 

Ebenezer Elliot, 1787. 
Died. — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 180. 

Thomas Randolph, 1634. 

Philip Massinger, 1640. 

Bishop Gilbert Burnet, 171 5. 

Jean Baptiste Rousseau, 1741, 

Anna Jameson, i860. 



March i8. 

Born. — John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782. 
Died. — Rev. Lawrence Sterne, 1768. 

John Home Tooke, 18 12. 

Robert Chambers, 1870. 



81 



March 19. 

Shall I fail? 
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 
*' Let no one be called happy till his death." 
To which I add — Let no one till his death 
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work 
Until the day's out and the labor done ; 
Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scant, 
Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ; 
And, in that we have nobly striven at least, 
Deal Avith us nobly, women though we be, 
And honor us with truth, if not with praise. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



March 20. 



Out of my own great woe 

I make my little songs, 

Which rustle their feathers in throngs 

And beat on her heart even so. 

They found the way, for their part, 
Yet come again, and complain, 
Complain, and are not fain 
To say what they saw in her heart. 

PARAPHRASES ON HEINE. 
82 



March 19. 

Born. — Rev. Edward Bickersteth, 1786. 

David Living-stone, 1817. 
Died. — Alexander Severus, 235. 

Bishop Thomas Ken, 1711. 

Stephen Storace, 1796. 

John, Duke of Roxburghe, 1804. 

Sir Joseph Banks, 1820. 

A. de Morgan, 1871. 



March 20. 

Dorn. — Publius Ovidius Naso, b. c. 45. 

Napoleon, Duke de Reichstadt, 1811, 
Died. — Sir Isaac Newton, 1727. 

Gilbert West, 1756. 

Mademoiselle Mars, 1847. 



83 



March 21. 

His dews drop mutely on the hill 
His cloud above it saileth still, 
Though on its slope men sow and reap. 
More softly than the dew is shed, 
Or cloud is floated overhead, 

* He giveth His beloved, sleep.' 

Ay, men may wonder while they scan 
A living, thinking, feeling man, 
Confirmed in such a rest to keep ; 
But angels say, and through the word 
I think their happy smile is heard — 

* He giveth His beloved, sleep ! ' 

THE SLEEP. 



March 22. 



By the way. 
The works of women are symbolical. 
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, 
Producing what ? A pair of slippers, sir, 
To put on when you're weary — or a stool 
To tumble over and vex you . . ** curse that 

stool ! " 
Or else at best, a cushion where you lean 
And sleep, and dream of something we are not. 
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! 
This hurts most, this . . that, after all, we are paid 
The worth of our work, perhaps. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

84 



March 21. 

Born. — Robert Bruce, 1274. 

John Sebastian Bach, 1685. 

J. B. J. Fourier, 1768. 

Henry Kirke White, 1785. 
Died. — Archbishop Usher, 1656. 

Due D'Enghien, 1804. 

Baron La Motte-Fouque, 1843, 

Robert Southey. 1843. 



March 22. 



Born. — Sir Anthony Vandyck, 1599, 

Edward Moore, 1712. 

Rosa Bonheur, 1822. 
Died. — Jean Baptiste Lully, 1687. 

Jonathan Edwards, 1758. 

I. W. von Goethe, 1832. 



S5 



March 23. 

With stammering lips and insufficient sound 

I strive and struggle to deliver right 

That music of my nature, day and night 

With dream and thought and feeling interwound. 

And inly answering all the senses round 

With octaves of a mystic depth and height 

Which step out grandly to the infinite 

From the dark edges of the sensual ground ! 

This song of soul I struggle to outbear 

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, 

And utter all myself into the air. 

But if I did it — as the thunder-roll 

Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there 

Before that dread apocalypse of soul. 



March 24. 

Drayton and Browne — with smiles they drew 
From outward nature, still kept new 
From their own inward nature true. 

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben — 
Whose fire-hearts sowed out furrows when 
The world was worthy of such men. 

A VISION OF POETS, 



86 



March 23. 

Born. — Pierre Simon Laplace 1749. 

William Smith, 1769. 
Died. — Justus Lipsius, 1606. 

Paul, Emperor of Russia, 1801. 

Thomas Holcroft, 1809. 

Augustus Frederick Kotzebue, 18 

Carl Maria von Weber, 1829 . 

Archdeacon Nares, 1829. 



March 24. 

^(?r;?2.— Mahomet II., 1436. 

Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, 1725. 
Died. — Haroun-al Raschid, 809. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 1603. 

Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, 1773. 

Mrs.. Mary Tighe, 1810. 

Bertel Thorwaldsen, 1844. 

Henry W. Longfellow, 1882. 



87 



March 25. 

The chances are that, being a woman, young, 

And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes. 

You write as well . . and ill . . upon the whole, 

As other women. If as well, what then ? 

If even a little better, . . still what then ? 

We want the Best in art now, or no art. 

The tirne is done for facile settings up 

Of minnow gods, nymphs here, and tritons there ; 

The polytheists have gone out in God, 

That unity of Bests. No best, no God ! — 

And so with art, we say. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 26. 

The music soars within the little lark, 
And the lark soars. It is not thus with men. 
We do not make our places with our strains — 
Content, while they rise, to remain behind, 
Alone on earth instead of so in heaven. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 25. 

Born. — Joachim Murat, King of Naples, 1771. 
Died. — Sir Thomas Elyot, 1546. 

Henry Cromwell, 1674. 

Anna Seward, 1809. 



March 26. 

^<?r«.— Conrad Gessner, 1516. 

Wilham Woolaston, 1659. 

Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773. 
Died. — Sir John Vanbrugh, 1726. 

C. P. Duclos, 1772. 

John Mitchell Kemble, 1857. 



March 27. 

That's abstract truth, I know, 
Philosophy, or sympathy with God ; 
But I, I sympathize, with man, not God, 
I thmk I was a man for chiefly this ; 
And when I stand beside a dying bed. 
It's death to me. Observe — it had not much 
Consoled the race of mastodons to know 
Before they went to fossil, that anon 
Their place should quicken with the elephant ; 
They were not elephants but mastodons : 
And I, a man, as men are now, and not 
As men may be hereafter, feel with men 
In the agonizing present. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



March 28. 



The Lady, throned in empyreal state, 

Minds only the young babe upon her knee ; 

While sidelong angels bear the royal weight. 
Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly 

Oblivion of their wings ! the Child thereat 
Stretches its hand like God. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



90 



March 27. 

Born. — James Keill^ 1671. 
Z>/V^.— Ptolemy XIII. b. c.47. 

James I. of England, 1625. 

Bishop Edward StiUingfleet, ] 



March 28. ' 

Born. — Raphael da Urbmo, 1483. 

Dr. Andrew Kippis, 1514-15. 
Died. — Raphael da Urbino, 1520. 

Jaques Callot, 1635. 

Wenzel Hollar, 1677. 

Margaret Woffington, 1760. 

Marquis de Condorcet, 1794. 

The Rev. Edward Valpy, 1856, 

Thomas Morton, 1838. 



91 



V 



March 29. 

I only would be spent — in pain 

And loss, perchance — but not in vain, 

Upon the sweetness of that strain ! 

Only project, beyond the bound 
Of mine own life, so lost and found, 
My voice, and live on in its sound ! 

Only embrace and be embraced 
By fiery ends — whereby to waste, 
And light God's future with my past. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



March 30. 

** One name is Elizabeth." 

BEN JONSON. 

And if any poet knew her, 

He would sing of her with falls 
Used in lovely madrigals. 

And if any painter drew her, 
^ He would paint her unaware 
With a halo round the hair. 



A PORTRAIT 



92 



March 29. 

Born.— 'Joseph Ignace Gillotin, 1738. 

Marshall Jean de Dieu Soult, Due de Dcl- 
matia, i76q. 
JDz'ed. — Raymond Lully, 1315. 

Captain Thomas Coram, 1751. 

Emmanuel Swedenborg, 1772. 

Gustavus IV. of Sweden, 1792. 

John Keble, i366. 



March 30. 

Born. — Sir Henry Wotton, 1568. 
Died. — Phocius, b. c, 317. 

Sir Ralph Sadler, 1587. 

Dr. John King, Bishop of London, 1621 

Sebastian de Vauban, 1707. 

Dr. William Hunter, 1785. 

James Moira, 1849, 



93 



March 31. 

There is no one beside thee and no one above thee. 
Thou standest alone as the nightingale sings ! 
And my words that would praise thee are impo- 
tent things, 
For none can express thee, though all should approve 
thee, 
I love thee, so, Dear, that I only can love thee. 

Say, what can I do for thee ? weary thee, grieve 
thee? 

Lean on thy shoulder, new burdens to add ? 

Weep my tears over thee, making thee sad ? 
Oh, hold me not — love me not ! let me retrieve thee, 

I love thee, so, Dear, that I only can leave thee. 

INSUFFICIENCY. 




94 



March 31. 

Born. — Ren^ Descartes, 1596. 

Francis Joseph Haydn, 1732. 
Died. — Dr. John Donne, 1631. 

Ludwig Beethoven, 1827. 

John Constable, R. A., 1837, 

J. C. Calhoun, 1850. 

Charlotte Bronte, 1855. 

Lady Charlotte Bury, 1801. 




95 



April i. 

But all — alas for her ! 

No thing did minister 
To her praises, to her praises, 
More than might unto a daisy's. 

No tree nor bush was seen 

To boast a perfect green, 
Scarcely having, scarcely having 
One leaf broad enough for waving. 

The little flies did crawl 

Along the southern wall, 
Faintly shifting, faintly shifting 
Wings scarce long enough for lifting. 

A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. 



April 2. 

The lark, too high or low, 

I ween, did miss her so, 
With his nest down in the gorses, 
And his song in the star-courses. 

The nightingale did please 

To loiter beyond seas. 
Guess him in the Happy islands, 
Learning music from the silence. 

Only the bee. forsooth. 

Came in the place of both, 
Doing honor, doing honor 
To the honey-dews upon her. 

A LAY C«F THE EARLY ROSE. 

96 



April i. 

Born. — William Harvey, 1578. 

Charles de St. Evremond, 161 3. 

Solomon Gessner, 1730. 

Count Otto von Bismarck, 1817. 
Died. — Tamerlane, 1405. 

Dr. John Langhorne, 1779. 

Reginald Heber, 1826. 



April 2. 

Born. — C. N. Oudinot, 1767. 

Z>/V^.^Comte de Mirabeau, 1791. 
Dr. Jaihes Gregory, 1821, 
Richard Cobden, 1863: 



97 



April 3. 

Now by the verdure on tny thousand hills, 
Beloved England — doth the earth appear 
Quite good enough for men to overbear 
The will of God in, with rebellious wills ! 
We cannot say the morning-sun fulfills 
Ingloriously its course, nor that the clear, 
Strong stars without significance insphere 
Our habitation- We, meantime, our ills 
Heap up against this good, and lift a cry 
Against this work-day world, this ill-spread feast, 
As if ourselves were better certainly 
Than what we come to. Maker and High Priest. 
I ask thee not my joys to multiply- 
Only to make me worthier of the least. 

SONNETS. 



April 4. 

I have been in the meadows all the day 
And gathered there the nosegay that you see, 
Singing within myself as a bird or bee 
When such do field-work on a morn of May. 

As a child. 
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, 
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth, 
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, 
He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 

SONNETS. 

98 



April 3. 

Born. — Richard II. of England, 1366, 

George Herbert, 1593. 

Washington Irving, 1783, 

Rev. Dionysius Lardner, 1793. 
Died. — James Napier, 1617. 

Edward, Marquis of Worcester, 1667. 



April 4. 

Born. — John Jackson, 1686. 
Died. — Robert Ainsworth, 1743. 

Oliver Goldsmith, 1774. 

Joseph Jerome Francis de Lalande, 1807, 



99 



April 5. 

** There is no God," the foolish saith, 

But none, ** There is no sorrow/* 
And nature oft, the cry of faith, 

In bitter need will borrow : 
Eyes which the preacher could not school, 

By wayside graves are raised, 
And lips say, *' God be pitiful," 

Who ne'er said, *' God be praised." 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 



April 6. 

The world of books is still the world, I write, 
And both worlds have God's providence, thank God, 
To keep and hearten : with some struggle, indeed. 
Among the breakers, some hard swimming through 
The deeps — I lost breath in my soul sometimes, 
And cried, ** God save me if there's any God." 
But, even so, God save me ; and, being dashed 
From error on to error, every turn 
Still brought me nearer to the central truth. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
100 



April 5. 

Born.— Thomas Hobbes, 1558. 

Catharine of Russia, i68g. 

Sir Henry Havelock, 1795. 
Z?z><a?.— John Stow, 1605. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, 1746. 

George Jacques Dan ton, 1794= 

Rev. William Gilpin, 1804. 

Robert Raikes, 181 1. 



April 6. 

Born.— ]ecin Baptiste Rousseau, i66g. 

James Mill, 1773. 

John Pierpont, 1785. 
Died. — Richard I. King of England, 119 

Laura de Noves, 1348. 

Albrecht Durer, 1528. 

Dr. Richard Busby, 1695. 

William Melmoth, 1743. 

Sir William Hamilton, 1803, 



lOI 



April 7. 

The poet hatli the child's sight in his breast, 

And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed, 

He views with the first glory. Fair and good 

Pall never on him, at the fairest, best, 

But stand before him holy and undressed 

In week-day false conventions, such as would 

Drag other men down from the altitude 

Of primal types, too early dispossessed. 

Why, God would tire of all his heaven as soon 

As thou, O godlike, childlike poet, didst 

Of daily and nightly sights of sun and moon ? 

And therefore hath He set thee in the midst 

Where men may hear thy wonder's ceaseless tune. 

And praise His world for ever as thou bidst. 

SONNETS. 



April 8. 



I think my soul said then, " I do not need 
A princedom and its quarries, after all ; 

For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed, 
On book or board or dust, on floor or wall. 

The same is kept of God, who taketh heed 
That not a letter of the meaning fall 

Or ere it touch and teach His world's deep heart, 
Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir ! 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 

102 



April 7. 

Born.— Dr. Hugh Blair, 1718. 

William Wordsworth, 1770. 

R, W. Elliston, 1774. 

Sir Francis Chantrey, 1782, 
Died — The Rev. William Mason, 1797- 

William Godwin, 1836. 

William Lisle Bowles, 1850. 



April 8. 



Born.— ]ohn C. Loudon, 1783. 
Died. — Caracalla, 217. 

Lorenzo de' Medici, 1492. 



103 



April 9. 

Which of you disdains 
These sinners who in falling proved their height 
Above you by their liberty to fall ? 
And which of you complains of loss by them, 
For whose delight and use ye have your life 
And honor in creation ? Ponder it ! 
This regent and sublime Humanity, 
Though fallen, exceeds you ! this shall film your sun, 
Shall hunt your lightning to its lair of cloud, 
Turn back your rivers, footpath all your seas, 
Lay flat your forests, master with a look 
Your lion at his fasting, and fetcli down 
Your eagle flying. 



A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



April 10. 



Bring violets rather. If these had not walked 

Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile ? 
Therefore bring violets ! Yet if we, self-balked. 

Stand still a-strewing violets all the while, 
These moved in vain^ of whom we have vainly talked. 

So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile. 
And having strewn the violets, reap the corn, 

And, ^ having reaped and garnered, bring the 
plough 
And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn 

And plant the great Hereafter in this Now. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



April 9. 

Bor^i.— Fisher Ames, 1758. 
Z>/>^.— Gabrielle de Estrees, 15990 

Francis Bacon, 1626. 

Jacques Neckar, 1788. 

John Opie, 1807. 



April io. 



J?or^.— Hugo Grotius, 15S3, 
William HazliU, 1778. 

D/ec/. —Erasmus Darwin, 1802. 
Paul Courier, 1825. 
Alexander Nasmyth, 1B400 



10.^ 



April ii. 

We do not serve the dead — the past is past ! 
God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up 

Before the eyes of men, awake at last, 
Who put away the meats they used to sup. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWSc 



April 12. 

All great men who foreknew 
Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad. 

And bent their old wliite heads as if uncrowned. 
Fanatics of their pure ideals still 

Far more than of their triumphs, which were found 
W^ith some less vehement struggle of the will. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



106 



April it. 

Born. — Christopher Smart, 1722. 

George Canning, 1770. 
Died. — Gaston de Foix, 1512. 

Stanislaus Poniatowski, 17080 

John Gait. 1839. 



April 12. 

Born. — Edward Bird, T772. 

Henry Clay, 1777. 
/>zV«/.— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 65, 

Bishop Bossuet, 1704. 

Dr. Edward Young, 17650 

Pietro Metastasio, 1782. 



107 



April 13. 

Experience, like a pale musician, holds 

A dulcimer of patience in his hand. 

Whence harmonies we cannot understand, 

'Of God's will in His words, the strain unfolds 

In sad perplexed minors. Deathly colds 

Fall on us while we hear and countermand 

Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land 

With nightingales in visionary wolds. 

We murmur, — *' Where is any certain tune 

Of measured music, in such notes as these ? " — 

But angels, leaning from the golden seat. 

Are not so minded : their fine ear hath won 

The issue of completed cadences ; 

And, smiling down the stars, they whisper — Sweet. 

SONNETS. 



April 14. 

My letters all dead paper, . . mute and white ! — 
And yet they seem alive and quivering 
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string 
And let them drop down on my knee to-night. 

SONNE»TS FROAl THE PORTUGUESE. 



108 



April 13. 

Born.— Thomas Went worth, Earl of Strafford, 1593, 

Jean Pierre Crouzaz, 1663. 

Dr. Thomas Beddoes, 1760. 
£>2ed. —Christopher Pitt, 1748. 

George Frederick Handel, 1759. 

Dr. Charles Burney, 1814. 

Sydney Lady Morgan, 1859. 



April 14. 

Born.— Dr. George Gregory, 1754. 
JDz'ed. — Thomas Otv/ay, 1685 

Madame de Sevigne, 1696. 

John Gilbert Cooper, 1769. 

William Whitehead, 1785. 



109 



April 15. 

Of shell of cocoa carven, 

Each little boat is made. 
Each carries a lamp, and carries a flower, 

'And carries a hope unsaid ; 
And when the boat hath carried the lamp 

Unquenched, till out of sight, 
The maiden is sure that love will endure — 

But love will fail with light. 

The river floweth on. 

ROMANCE OF THE GANGES. 



April 16. 

Though louder beats mine heart 
* I know his tread again. 
And his far plume aye, unless turned away, 
For the tears do blind me then. 
We brake no gold, a sign 
Of stronger faith to be — 
But I wear his last look in my soul, 
Which said, I love but thee ! 

ROMANCE OF MARGARET. 
IIO 



April 15. 

Born — Sir James Clark Ross, 1800. 
Died. — Lord Calvert, 1632. 

Madame de Maintenon, 1719. 

Madame de Pompadour, 1764. 



April i6. 

Born. — Sir Hans Sloane, 1660. 

John Law, 1671., 
Died. — Aphra Behn, 1689. 

George Louis Comte de Buff on, 1788. 

Henry Fuseli, 1825. 

Madame Tussaud, 1850. 



Ill 



April 17. 

Alas, this Italy has too long swept 
Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand ; 

Of her own past impassioned sympholept ! 
Consenting to be nailed here by the hand 

To the very bay-tree under which she stepped 
A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



April 18. 

The same blue waters where the dolphins swim 
Suggest the tritons. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

A man may love a woman perfectly, 

And yet by no means ignorantly maintain 

A thousand women have not larger eyes ' 

Enough that she alone has looked at him 

With eyes that, large or small, have won his soul, 

AURORA LEIGH. 
112 



April 17. 

Born.— John Ford, 1586. 

Bishop Edward Still ingfleet, 1635. 
Died. — Marino Faliero. 1355. 

Bishop Benjamin Hoadley, 1761, 

Dr. Benjamin Franklin, 1790. 

James Thorn, 1850. 



April i8. 

Bom.— Sir Francis Baring, 1740. 

George H. Lewes, 1817. 
Died. — John Fox, 1587. 

John Abernethy, 1831. 



113 



April 19. 

And poor, proud Byron — sad as grave, 
And salt as life : forlornly brave. 
And quivering with the dart he drave. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

His arm was in the foremost rank, 
Where embattled thousands roll-— 

His name was in the love of Greece, 
And his spell was on her soul. 

But the arm that wielded her good sword, 

The brow that wore the wreath. 
The lips that breathed the deathless thoughts, 

They went asleep in death. 



STANZAS. 



April 20. 

Disband thy captains, change thy victories, 

Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are, 
Helping, not humbling. 

The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, 
Since every victim-carrion turns to use, 

And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth. 
Against each piled injustice. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



April 19. 

Born. — Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, 1757. 
Z>/^d?.— Philip Melancthon, 1560. 

Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, 1608. 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1824. 



April 20. 

Born. — 

Died. — Prince Eugene of Savoy, 1736. 
Robert Mudie, 1842. 



115 



April 21. 
The seraph sings before the manifest 
God-One and in the burning of the Seven, 
And with the full life of consummate Heaven 
Heaving beneath him, like a mother's breast 
Warm with her first-born's slumber in that nest. 
The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven, 
Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven 
For wronging him — and in the darkness prest 
From his own soul by worldly weights. Even so ! 
Sing, seraph with the glory ! heaven is high. 
Sing, poet with the sorrow ! earth is low. 
The universe's inward voices cry 
'* Amen " to either song of joy and woe. 

Sing, seraph, — poet — sing on equally ! sonnets. 
©-?>-» — 

April 22. 

Women know 
The way to rear up children (to be just), 
They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, 
And stringing pretty words that make no sense. 
And kissing full sense into empty words ; 
Which things are corals to cut life upon. 
Although such trifles : children learn by such, . 
Love's holy earnest in a pretty play, 
And get not over-early solemnized — 
But seeing, as in a rose-bush. Love's Divine, 
Which burns and hurts not — not a single bloom — 
Become aware and unafraid of Love. 

Il5 AURORA LEIGH. 



^APRIL 21. 

Born. — Reginald Heber, 1783. 
Z>z>^.— Alexander the Great, b. c. 323. 

Peter Abelard, 1142. 

Jean Racine, 1699. 

David Mallet, 1755. 



April 22. 

Born. — Henry Fielding, 1707. 

Emmanuel Kant, 1724. 

James Grahame, 1765. 

Madame de Stael, 1766. 
Z>?Vif. —Thomas Haynes Bayley, 1839. 



117 



April 23. 

O heaven, I think that day had noble use 
Among God's days. 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



There, Shakespeare, on v/hose forehead climb 
The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime, 
With tears and laughters for all time ! 

A VISION OF POETS. 



April 24. 

The plague runs festering through the town, 

And never a bell is tolling, 
And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon, 

Nod to the dead-cart's rolling. 
The young child calleth for the cup, 

The strong man brings it weeping ; 
The mother from her babe looks up, 

And shrieks away its sleeping. 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 

118 



April 23. 

Born.— JuVms Caesar Scaliger, 1484. 
Died .—WU\ia.m Shakespeare, 1616. 

Maurice de Nassau, 1625. 

Joseph Nollekins, 1825. 

William Wordsworth, 1850. 



April 24. 

Born. — Edmund Cartwright, 1743. 

John Trumbull, 1750. 
Died.— TfSimel de Foe, 1751. 

William Seward, 1799. 

Pierre de Beaumarchais, 1799. 



i;i9 



April 25. 

Art thou indeed so adverse ? 
Art thou so changed indeed ? 
Against the woman who wrongs me 
I cry to the world in my need. 

O recreant lips unthankful, 

How could ye speak evil, say, 

Of the man who so well has kissed you 

On many a fortunate day ? 

PARAPHRASE ON HEINF. 



April 26. 

The ship went on with solemn face ; 
To meet the darkness on the deep, 
The solemn ship went onward. 
I bowed down weary in the place, 
For parting tears and present sleep 
Had weighed mine eyelids downward. 

A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA. 



APRIL 25. 

^^r«.-'OHver Cromwell, 1599. 

Sir Mark Isambard Brunei, 1769. 
Died. — Torquato Tasso, 1595. 

Samuel Wesley, 1735. 

William Cowper^ 1800. 



April 26. 

i?^r?2.— Thomas Reid, 1710. 

David Hume, 171 1. 

Johann Ludwig Uhland, 1787, 
Died. — Ferdinand Magellan, 1521. 

Jeremy Collier, 1726. 

Carsten Neibuhr, 1815. 

Henry Cockburn, 1854. 



April 27. 

Whoever says 
To a loyal woman, *' Love and v/ork with me," 
Will get fair answers, if the work and love, 
Being good themselves, are good for her — the best 
She was born for. Women of a softer mood, 
Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life, 
Will sometimes only hear the first word, love. 
And catch up with it any kind of work, 
Indifferent, so that dear love go with it : 
I do not blame such women, though, for love. 
They pick much oakum ; earth's fanatics make 
Too friendly heaven's saints. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



April 28. 

" I come forth 
To crown all poets to their worth. 
"Yea, verily, and to anoint them all 
With blessed oils vvdiich surely shall 
Smell sweeter as the ages fall." 

"As sweet," the poet said, and rung 
A low sad laugh, " as flowers are sprung 
Out of their graves when they die young. 

" As sweet as window eglantine — 
Some bough of which, as they decline, 
Tke hired nurse gathers at their sign." 

A VISION OF POETS. 

122 



April 27. 

Born. — Edward Gibbon, 1737. 

Mary Woolslonecroft, 1753. 
Died. — John James Ankerstrom, 1792. 

Sir William Jones, 1794. 

James Bruce, 1794. 

Thomas Stothard, 1834. 



April 28. 



Born.—Q\\2iX\t.^ Cotton, 1639. 

Anthony, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 1801 
/^/Vrt'.— Thomas Betterton, 1710. 

Earon Denon, 1825. 

Gilbert A. Becket, 1856. 



123 



April 29. 
O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Righteousness, 

Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief, 
Pierce them with conscience, purge them with 
redress, 
And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! 

I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole 

Of immemorial, undeciduous trees. 
Would write, as lovers use, upon a scroll 

The holy name of Peace, and set it high 
Where none could pluck it down. On trees, I say — 

Not upon gibbets ! 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



April 30. 

My future will not copy fair my past 

On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done, 

Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one 

Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast 

Upon the fullness of the heart, at last 

Says no grace after meat. My wine has run 

Indeed out of my cup, and there is none 

To gather up the bread of my repast 

Scattered and trampled — yet I find some good 

In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up- 

Clear from the darkling ground — content until 

I sit with angels before better food. 

Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup, 

This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill. 

SONNETS. 
124 



April 29. 

Born. — King Edward IV. of England, 1441. 
Died, — John Cleaveland, 1689. 
Michael Ruyter, 1676. 



April 30. 

Born. — Qiieen Mary II. of England, 1C62. 
Died. — Marcus Annseus Lucanus, 65. 

Chevalier Bayard, 1524. 

George Farquhar, 1707. 

James Montgomery, 1852. 

Sir Henry Bishop, 1855. 



125 



May I. 

The trees were interwoven wild, 
And spread their boughs enough about 
To keep both sheep and shepherd out, 
But not a happy child. 

Adventurous joy it was for me ! 
I crept ^eneath the boughs, and found 
A circle smooth of mossy ground 
Beneath a poplar tree. 

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, 
Bedropt with roses waxen-white 
Well satisfied with dew and light 
And careless to be seen. 

THE DESERTED GARDEN. 



May 2. . 

A Thought lay like a flower upon mine heart, 

And drew around it other thoughts like bees 

For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses, — 

Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art 

Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart 

Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees. 

That I might hive with me such thoughts, and please 

My soul so, always. Foolish counterpart 

Of a weak man's vain wishes ! While I spoke. 

The thought I called a flower, grew nettle-rough — 

The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering. 

Oh, entertain (cried Reason, as she woke) 

Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough, 

And they will all prove sad enough to sting. 

SONNETS. 
126 



May I. 

Born. — Wiiliam Lilly, 1602. 

Joseph Addison, 1672. 

Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 1769. 
Died. — Arcadius, Emperor of the East, 408, 

John Dryden, 1700, 



May 2. 

Born. — William Camden, 1551. 

Rev. Robert Hall, 1764. 

John Gait, 1779. 
Died. — Leonardo da Vinci, 1520. 

Hester Lynch Piozzi, 1824, 

William Beresford, 1844, 



127 



May 3. 

As the moths around a taper, 
As the bees around a rose, 
As the gnats around a vapor, 
So the spirits group and close 
Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its re- 
pose. 

Haply it is arigels' duty, 

During slumber, shade by shade, 
To fine down this childish beauty 
To the thing it must be made, 
Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb 
shall see it fade. 

A CHILD ASLEEP 



May 4. 

And birds that live there in a crowd 

Horned owls, rapt nightingales, 
Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud„ 

Self-sphered in those grand tails ; 
All creatures glad and safe, I deem'. 
No guns nor springes in my dream ! 

One dove is answering in trust 

The water every minute. 
Thinking so soft a murmur must 

Have her mate's cooing in it : 
So softly does earth's beauty round 
Infuse itself in ocean's sound. 

AN ISLAND. 
128 



May 3. 

Born. — Nicholas Machiavelli, 1469. 

Dean Humphrey Prideaux, 1648. 

Augustus Frederick Kotzebue, 1761. 
Died. —George Psalmanazar, 1763. 

Thomas Hood, 1845. 



May 4. 

Born.—]o\\n James Audubon, 1762. 
Died.— Dr. Isaac Barrow, 1677. 

Sir James Thornhill, 1734. 

Tippoo Sahib, 1799. 

Sir Robert Kerr Porter, 1842= 



I2Q 



May 5. 

O wild St. Helen 1 very still she kept him 
"With a green willow for all pyramid, — - 
Which stirred a little if the low wind did, 
A little more, if pilgrims overwept him, 
Disparting the lithe boughs to see the clay 
Which seemed to cover his for judgment-day. 

A little urn — a little dust inside, 

Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit 

To-day a four-years child might carry it 

Sleek -browed and smiling, ** Let the burden 'bide ! " 

Orestes to Electra ! — O fair town 

Of Paris, how the wild tears will run down ! 

CROWNED AND BURIED. 



May 6. 

And so I am strong to love this noble France, 

This poet of the nations, who dreams on 

And wails on (while the household goes to wreck) 

For ever, after some ideal good — 

Some equal poise of sex, some unvowed love 

Inviolate, some spontaneous brotherhood. 

Some wealth, that leaves none poor and finds none 

tired. 
Some freedom of the many, that respects 
The wisdom of the few. Heroic dreams ! 
Sublime, to dream so ; natural to wake : 
And sad, to use such lofty scaffoldings. 
Erected for the building of a church, 
To build instead, a brothel . . or a prison. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
130 



May 5. 

Born. — Emperor Justinian, 482. 
Died. — Thomas Davies, 1785. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 1821. 

Charles Robert Leslie, 1859. 



May 6. 

Bor7i. — Andrew Massena, 1758. 
Died. — Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1631. 
Andrew Michael Ramsay, 1743. 



131 



May 7. 

Thou hast thy calling to some palace floor, 

Most gracious singer of high poems ! where 

The dancers will break footing, from the care 

Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. 

And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor 

For hand of thine ? and canst thou think and bear 

To let thy music drop here unaware 

In folds of golden fullness at my door ? 

Look up and see the casement broken in, 

The bats and owlets builders in the roof ! 

My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. 

Hush ! call no echo up in further proof 

Of desolation ! there's a voice within 

That weeps . . as thou must sing . . alone aloof. 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 



May 8. 

Ah me, the vines 
That bear such fruit, are proud to stoop with it. 
The palm stands upright in a realm of sand. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



132 



May 7. 

Born. — Robert Browning, 1812. 
Z>zVaf.—Otho the Great, 973. 

Jacques Auguste de Thou, 1617. 

Richard Cumberland, 1811. 

H. W. Bunbury, 1811. 



May 8. 

Born. — Alain Rend le Sage, 1658. 

Dr. Porteous, Bishop of London, 1791. 
Died.— Dr. Peter Heylin, 1662. 

Due de Choiseul, 1785. 

Antoine Louis Lavoisier, 1794. 



133 



May 9. 

And Schiller, with heroic front 
Worthy of Pkitarch's kiss upon*t — 
Too large for wreath of modern wont. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

If artist-born ? O sorrowful great gift 

Conferred on poets, of a twofold life, 

When one life has been found enough for pain ! 

We staggering *neath our burdens as mere men, 

Being called to stand up straight as demi-gods, 

Support the intolerable strain and stress 

Of the universal, and send clearly up 

With voices broken by the human sob. 

Our poems to find rhymes among the stars ! 

AURORA LEIGH, 



May 10. 

She has thrown her bonnet by. 
And her feet she has been dipping 

In the shallow water's flow. 

Now she holds tkem nakedly 
In her hands, all sleek and dripping, 

While she rocketh to and fro. 

Little Ellie sits alone, 
And the smile she softly uses, 

Fills the silence like a speech, 

While she thinks what shall be done — 
And the sweetest pleasure chooses 

For her future within reach. 

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAn's NEST. 



May 9. 

Born. — Giovanni Paisiello, 1741. 
Died. — Count Zinzendorf, 1760. 

Frederick Schiller, 1805. 

Nicholas Francois Gay-Lussac, 1850 



May 10. 



Born. — Aime Robert Jacques Turgot, 1727. 
Died. — Barton Booth, 1733, 

General De Dampierre, 1703. 



T35 



May II. 

I would have no gifts 
Forsooth, but God's — and I would use them^ too, 
According to my pleasure and my choice, 
As He and I were equals. 

I would not be a woman like the rest, 
A simple woman who believes in love, 
And owns the right of love because she loves, 
And, hearing she's beloved, is satisfied 
With what contents God. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 12. 

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand 

her brow was wreathing, 
But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed 

in all her breathing, 
Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions 

high and moving, 
Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the 

loving. 

FELICIA HEMANS. 
136 



May II. 

Born. — Cardinal Pole, 1500. 

Died. — David I. King of Scots, 1153. 

Catharine Cockburn, 1749. 

William Pitt, 1778. 

Spencer Perceval, 1812. 

Madame Rdcamier 1849. 



May 12. 

Born. — John Bell, 1763. 

John Russell Hind, 1823. 
Di'^d. — Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 1641. 

Christopher Smart, 1771. 

Francis Grose, 1791. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 1835, 



137 



May 13. 

What's the best thing in the world? 
June-rose, by May-dew impearled ; 
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain, 
Truth, not cruel to a friend ; 
Pleasure, not in haste to end ; 
Beauty, not self-decked and curled 
Till its pride is over-plain ; - 
Light, that never makes you wink ; 
Memory, that gives no pain ; 
Love, when, sOy you're loved again. 
What's the best thing in the world ? 
— Something out of it, I think. 

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. 



May 14. 

Let us ponder, friend, 
Whate'er our state, we must have made it first ; 
And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps 
Displease us warrantably, never doubt 
That other states, thought possible once, and then 
Rejected by the instinct of our lives — 
If then adopted, had displeased us more 
Than this, in which the choice, the will, the love. 
Has stamped the honor of a patent act [good ; 

From henceforth. What we choose, may not be 
But, that we choose it, proves it good for us 
Potentially, fantastically, now 
Or last year, rather than a thing we saw, 
And saw no need for choosing. 

138 AURORA LEIGH. 



May 13. 

Born. — Empr.ess Maria Theresa, T717. 
Died. — Johan Van Olden Barneveldt, 1619. 

Louis Bourdaloue, 1704, 

JamcG Basire. 1802. 



May 14. 

Born.—]dhn Dunton, 1659. 

Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, 1686. 

Robert Owen, 1771. 
Died. — Henry IV., of France, i6ro. 

Louis XIIL of France, 1643. 

Henry Grattan, 1820. 



139 



May 15. 

The growing drama has outgrown such toys 

Of simulated stature, face, and speech, 

It also, peradventure, may outgrow 

The simulation of the painted scene. 

Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume ; 

Aad take for a worthier stage the soul itself. 

Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, 

With all its grand orchestral silences 

To keep the pauses of the rhythmic sounds. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



May 16. 



Be sure, no earnest work 
Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, 
Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much. 
It is not gathered as a grain of sand 
To enlarge the sum of human action used 
For carrying out God's end. No creature works 
So ill, observe, that therefore he's cashiered. 
The honest earnest man must stand and work : 
The woman also ; otherwise she drops 
At once below the dignity of man. 
Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work : 
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 15. 

Borfz.— Cardinal Alberoni, 1664. 

Thomas Taylor, 1758. 
£>/ed. — Mile. Champmele, 1698. 

Alban Butler, 1773. 

Edmund Kean, 1833. 

Daniel O'Connell, 1847, 



May 16. 



Born. — Sir William Petty, 1623. 

Sir Dudley North, 1641. 
Z>/^^. — Pope John XXI., 1277. 

Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, 1837. 

George Clint, 1854, 



141 



May 17. 

We women are too apt to look to one, 
Which proves a certain impotence in art. 
We strain our natures at doing something great, 
Far less because it's something great to do, 
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves 
As being not small, and more appreciable 
To some one friend. 

/fUKORA LEIGH. 



May 18. 

If He cannot work by us. 
He will work over us. Does he want a man, 
Much less a woman, think you ? Every time 
The star winks there, so many souls are born. 
Who shall work too. Let our own be calm : 
We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars. 
Impatient that we're nothing. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

142 



May 17. 

Born.— Dr. Edward Jenner, 1749. 
Died. — Heloise , 1 1 63 . 

Catharine I. of Russia, 1727. 

Dr. Samuel Clarke, 1729. 

Samuel Boyse, 1749. 

Prince Talleyrand, 1838. 



May 18. 

Born. — 

Died.—KMdiS Ashmole, 1692. 
Charles Perrault, 17030 



143 



May 19. 

I have not stood long on the strand of life, 

And these salt waters have had scarcely time 

To creep so high up as to wet my feet. 

I cannot judge these tides — I shall, perhaps. 

A woman's always younger than a man 

At equal years, because she is disallowed 

Maturing by the out-door sun and air, 

And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk. 

Ah well, I know you men judge otherwise ! 

You think a woman ripens as a peach — 

In the cheeks, chiefly. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 20. 



We want more quiet in our works, 
More knowledge of the bounds in which we work ; 
More knowledge that each individual man 
Remains an Adam to the general race, 
Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep 
His personal state's condition honestly. 
Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world, 
Which still must be developed from its one^ 
If bettered, in its many. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 19. 

Born. — Johann Theophilus Fichte, 1762. 

Professor John Wilson, 1785. 
Died. — Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, 1536. 

John Hales, 1656. 

James Boswell, 1795, 



May 20. 



Born. — Albrecht Diirer, J471. 

Elijah Fen ton, 1683. 
Died. —Christopher Columbus, 1506, 

Bishop Thomas Sprat, 1713. 

Rev. Blanco White, 1841, 



145 



May 21. 

A woman cannot do the thing she ought, 

Which means whatever perfect thing she can, 

In life, in art, in science, but she fears 

To leT the perfect action take her part 

And rest there : she must prove what she can do 

Before she does it — prate of woman's rights, 

Of woman^s mission, woman's function, till 

The men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry 

** A woman's function plainly is . . to talk. 

Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed ! 

They cannot hear each other speak." 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 22. 

And whosoever writes good poetry, 
Looks just to art. He does not write for you 
Ot* me — for London or for Edinburgh , 
He will not suffer the best critic known 
To step into his sunshine of free thought 
And self-absorbed conception, and exact 
An inch-long swerving of the holy lines. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

146 ♦ 



May 21. 

Born.— l^hiVip II. of Spain, 1527. 

John, Lord Lyndhurst, 1772. 
Dz'ed. — James Grahame, Marquis of Montrose, 1650. 

Robert Herley, Earl of Oxford, 1724. 

Dr Thomas Warton, 1790. 

Maria Edgeworth, 1849, 



May 22. 

^^r;?.— Alexander Pope, 1688. 
Died. —Emperor Constantine, 337. 

General Duroc, 1813. 

Robert Vernon, 1849. 



147 



May 23. 

This was he, 
vSavonarola, who, while Peter sank 

With his whole boat-load, called courageously 
** Wake Christ, wake Christ ! " Who, having tried 
the tank 

Of old church-waters used for baptistry 
Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank ! 

Who also by a princely death-bed cried, 
** Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul ! " 

Then fell back the Magnificent and died 
Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl, 

Which turned to wormwood bitterness the wide 
Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul 

To grudge Savonarola and the rest 
Their violets ! rather pay them quick and fresh ! 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



May 24. 

How tired we feel, my heart and I ! 

We seem of no use in the world ; 

Our fancies hang gray and uncurled 
About men's eyes indifferently ; 

Our voice which thrilled you so, will let 

You sleep : our tears are only wef: 
What do we hear, my heart and I ? 

MY HEART AND I. 
148 



May 23. 

Born.— E\ia.s Ashmole, 1617. 

James Boaden, 1762. 
Z>/eal. — Jerome Savonarola, 1498. 

William Wool let, 1785. 

Richard Lalor Shiel, 1851, 



May 24. 

Born. — Charles Von Linne (Linnaeus), 17070 

Albert Smith, 1816. 

John Henry Foley, 1818. 

Queen Victoria, 1819. 
Died. — Nicholas Copernicus, 1543. 

Lord 'Rodney, 1792. 

Miss Jane Porter, 1850. 



149 



May 25. 

'Twill employ 
Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin ! 
Who makes the head, content to miss the point — 
Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join : 
And if a man should cry, " I want a pin, 
And I must make it straightway, head and point," 
His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. 
Seven men to a pin — and not a man too much ! 
Seven generations, haply to this world, 
To right it visibly, a finger's breadth, 
And mend its rents a little. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



May 26. 



The waxen mask. 
Which set the grand still front of Themis' son 
Upon the puckered visage of a player ; — 
The buskin, which he rose upon and moved, 
As some tall ship, first conscious of the wind. 
Sweeps slowly past the piers ; — the mouthpiece, 

where 
The mere man's voice with all its breaths and breaks 
Went sheathed in brass, and clashed on even heights 
Its phrased thunders ; — these things are no more. 
Which once were. 

AURORA LEIGH 
150 



May 25. 

Born.—John Mason Good, 1764. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803. 

Francis Edward Todleben, t8i8 
Died.—\)x. William Paley, 1805 

Edmond Malone, 1812, 



May 26. 

^^r?2.— Charles, Due d'Orleans, 1391. 
Died. —The Venerable Bede, 735. 

Samuel Pepys, 1703, 

Thomas Southerne, 1746. 

Franz Josef Haydn, 1809. 

Capel Lofft, 182 1. 



151 



May 27. 

And Dante stern 
And sweet, whose spirit was an urn 
For wine and milk poured out in turn. 



A VISION OF POETS. 



O passionate 
Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine, 
Didst sit austere at banquets of the great, 

And muse upon this far-off stone of thine, 
And think how oft some passer used to wait 

A moment, in the golden day's decline, 
With " good night, dearest Dante ! " — well, good- 
night ! 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



May 28. 

Bring me the clasps of diamond, lucid, clear of the 

mote, 
Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the 

small at the throat. * 

Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten 

the sleeves, 
Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow 

from the eaves. 

A COURT LADY. 



May 27. 

Born.— Dante Alighieri, 1265. 
Died. — John Calvin, 1564. 

Noah Webster, 1843. 



May 28. 

Born. — William Pitt, 1759. 

Thomas Moore, 1780. 
Died. — Madame de Montespan, 1708, 

Bishop Richard Hurd, j8o8. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, 1829. 



153 



May 29. 

America is our brother land, and, though a 
younger brother, sits already in the teacher's seat, 
and expounds the common rights of our humanity. 
It would be strange, indeed, if we in England did 
not love and exult in America ; if English poets, of 
whom I am least, if at all, did not receive with, a 
peculiar feeling of gratitude and satisfaction the 
kind welcoming word of American readers. 

MS. LETTERS. 



May 30. 

O world, O world, 
O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, 
We play a weary game of hide and seek ! 
We shape a figure of our fantasy, 
Call nothing something, and run after it 
And lose it, lose ourselves too in the search, 
Till clash against us comes a somebody 
Who also has lost something and is lost, 
Philosopher against philanthropist, 
Academician against poet, man 
Against woman, against the living, the dead — 
Then home, with a bad headache and worse jest ! 

AURORA LEIGH. 
154 



May 29. 

Born.— Cha.r\es II., of England, 1630. 

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 1660. 

Patrick Henry, 1736. 

Joseph Fouchd, 1763. 
Died. — Cardinal Beatoun, 1546. 

Empress Josephine, 1814. 



May 30. 

' Born.—VtX^x the Great, 1672. 
Died .~]o2Ss. D'Arc, 1431. 

Peter Paul Rubens, 1640. 

Alexander Pope, 1744. 

Fran9ois Marie de Arouet (Voltaire), 1778., 



155 



May 31. 

Little Ellie in her smile 
Chooseth . . . '' I will have a lover. 

Riding on a steed of steeds ! 

He shall love me v^ithout guile ; 
And to him I will discover 

That swan's nest among the reeds. 

"And the steed shall be red-roan, 
And the lover shall be noble, 

With an eye that takes the breath; 

And the lute he plays upon 
Shall strike ladies into trouble, 

As his sword strikes men to death." 

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAn's NEST. 



156 



May 31. 

Born. — Frederick von Hardenberg, 1772. 

Ludwig Tieck, 1773. 
Died. — Marshal Lannes, 1809. 

Joseph Grimaldi, 1837. 

Rev, Dr. Thomas Chalmers, 1847, 

Charlotte Bronte, 1855. 




157 



June i. 

I lived with visions for my company, 

Instead of men and women, years ago, 

And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know 

A sweeter music than they playfed to me. 

But soon their trailing purple was not free 

Of this world's dust — their lutes did silent grow. 

And I myself grew faint an,d blind below 

Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come to be 

Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts, 

Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same. 

As river-water, hallowed into fonts) 

Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 

My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. 



SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 



June 2. 

But my lover will not prize 
All the glory that he rides in, 

When, he gazes in my face. 

He will say, "O Love, thine eyes 
Build the shrine my soul abides in. 

And I kneel here for thy grace." 

Then, ay, then — he shall kneel low. 
With the red-roan steed anear him, 

Which shall seem to understand — 

Till I answer " Rise and go ! 
For the world must love and fear him 

Whom I gift with heart and hand." 

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN's NEST. 

158 



June i. 

Born. — Nicholas Poussin, 1594. 

Sir John Dugdale, 1628. 
Died. — Henry Dandolo, Doge of Venice, 1205, 

Jerome of Prague, 1416. 

Christopher Marlowe, 1593. 

Sir David Wilkie, 1841. 

Guisseppi Garibaldi, 1882. 



June 2. 



Born. — Nicholas le Fcvre, 1542. 

Died. —Mademoiselle de Scuderie, 1701. 



159 



June 3. 

Mine is a wayward lay; 
And, if its echoing rhymes I try to string, 

Proveth a truant thing. 
When so some name I love, send it away ! 

For then, eyes swimming o'er, 
And clasped hands, and smiles in fondness meant. 
Are much more eloquent — 
' So it had fain begone, and speak no more ! 

Hast thou not looked upon 
The flowerets of the field in lowly dress ? 

Blame not my simpleness — 
Think only of my love, — my song is gone ! 



June 4. 

I'm not too much 
A woman, not to be a' man for once. 
And bury all my dead like Alaric, 
Depositing the treasures of my soul 
In this drained water- course, and, letting flow 
The river of life again, with commerce-ships 
And pleasure -barges, full of silks and songs. 
Blow winds, and help us. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
160 



June 3. 

Born,— Dr. James Hutton, 1726. 

Robert Tannahiil, 1774. 
Died. — William Harvey, 1657. 

Dr. Edward Calamy, 1732. 



June 4. 

Born.— (jt.or%^ III., King of Great Britain, 1738. 

John Scott, Earl of Eldon, 1751. 
Died.—IA. A. Muret (Muretius), 1585. 

Marshal Davoust, 1823. 

Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, 1849. 



II 161 



June 5, 

For the truth itself. 
That's neither man's nor woman's but just God's : 
None else has reason to be proud of truth ; 
Himself will see it sifted, disenthralled, 
And kept upon the height and in the light, 
As far as, and no farther than 'tis truth ; 
For — now He has left off calling firmaments 
And strata, flowers and creatures, very good — 
He says it still of truth, which is His own. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



June 6. 

'Tis said that women have been bruised to death, 
And yet, if once they loved, that love of theirs 
Could never be drained out with all their blood : 
I've heard such things and pondered. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



162 



June 5. 

Born. — Socrates, b. c. 468. 

Adam Smith, 1723. 
Died. —John Pasiello, 1816. 

Carl Maria von Weber, 1826. 



June 6. 

Born.—\y\.Q%o Velasquez, 1599. 

Pierre Corneille, 1606. 
Died. — Ludovico Giovanni Ariosto, 1533. 

Louise, Duchess de la Valliere, 1710. 

Patrick Henry, 1799. 

Jeremy Bentham, 1832. 



163 



June 7. 

There are fatal days, indeed, 
In which the fibrous years have taken root 
So deeply, that they quiver to their tops 
Whene'er you stir the dust of such a day. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



June 8. 

Death quite unfellows us, 
Sets dreadful odds betwixt the live and dead, 
And makes us part as those at Babel did, 
Through sudden ignorance of a common tongue. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



164 



June 7. 

Born, — John Rennie, 1761. 

Rev. W. D. Conybeare, 1787. 
Z^/c"^. —Robert Bruce, 1329. 

John Aubrey, 1697. 

Bishop William Warburton, 1779, 



June 8. 

Born. — Alexander Cagliostro, 1743. 

Robert Stevenson, 1772. 
Died. —Nero, 68. 

Mahomet, 632. 

Edward, the Black Prince, 13760 

Shah Nadir, 1747. 

Ambrose Philips, 1749. 

Thomas Paine, 1809. 

Douglas Jerrold, 1857. 

Charles Dickens, 1870. 

165 



June 9. 

The poet went out weeping — and died abroad, 
bereft there. 
The bird flew to his grave and died amid a thou- 
sand wails. 
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the 
music left there 
Was only the poet's song, and not the nightin- 
gale's. 

THE POET AND THE BIRD. 



June 10. 

O my poet, O my prophet, 

When you praised their sweetness so, 
Did you thmk, in singing of it, 
That it might be near to go ? 
Had you fancies 
From their glances, 
That the grave would quickly screen 
** Sweetest eyes, were ever seen." 

CATAKINA TO CAMOENS. 
166 



June 9. 

Born. — George Stephenson, 1784. 

John Howard Payne, 1792. 
Died.— WiW'iSim Lilly, 1682. 

Dr. Abraham Rees, 1825. 



June ro. 

Born. — John Dollond, 1706. ' 
Died. — Frederick Barbarossa, 11760 

Louis Camoens, 1580. 

Thomas Hearne, 1 735. 



167 



June ii. 

O sorrowful great gift 
Conferred on poets, of a two-fold life, 
When one life has been found enough for pain 
We staggering ^neath our burden as mere men, 
Being called to stand up straight as demi-gods, 
Support the intolerable strain and stress 
Of the universal, and send clearly up 
With voices broken by the human sob, 
Our poems to find rhymes among the stars ! 

AURORA LEIGH. 



June 12. 

We have one Shakespeare between us, your land 
and ours, have we not ? and one Milton, and now 
we are waiting for you to give us another. Niagara 
ought ! 

*' And music borne of murmuring sound 
Shall pass into her face." 

In the mean time we give honor to those tuneful 
voices of your people, which prophesy a yet greater 
music than they utter. You do honor to my verses 
in permitting them to approach and breathe the 
** sweet air" of Mr. Bryant. 

MS. LETTERS. 

168 



June ii. 

Born.~Georg,Q Wither, 1588. 

Sir Kenelm Digby, 1603, 
Died. — Roger Bacon, 1294. 

Sir Kenelm Digby, 1665. 

Due de Vendome, 1712. 

Dr. William Robertson, 17930 

Du.^ald Stewart, 1828. 



June 12. 

^^r^.— Harriet Martineau, 1802, 
Charles Kingsley, 1819. 

Died. — William Collins, 1759. 

Dr. Thomas Arnold, 1842. 
William Cullen Bryant, 18 



169 



June 13. 

Love me, sweet, with all thou art, 

Feeling, thinking, seeing — 
Love me m the lightest part, 

Love me in full being, 

Love me with thine open youth 

In its frank surrender ; 
With the vowing of thy mouth, 

With its silence tender. 

Love me with thine azure eyes, 

Made for earnest granting ' 
Taking color from the skies, 

Can Heaven's truth be wanting ? 

A man's requirements. 



June 14. 

The English have a scornful insular way 
Of calling the French light. The levity 
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands ; 
For say a foolish thing but oft enough, 
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds — 
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, 
By reiteration chiefly) the same thing 
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise. 
And not with fools exclusively. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
V 170 



June 13. 

Born. — Frances Burney, 1752 

Rev. Thomas Arnold, 1795. 
Died. — Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 1817. 



June 14. 



Born. — Thomas Pennant, 1723. 
Z^^Vfl'. —General J . B. Kleber, 1800. 
General Louis Dessaix, 1800, 



171 



June 15. 

Hope tripped out of sight, 
Crowned with an Eden wreath she saw not wither, 
And went a-nodding through the wilderness 

With brow that shone no less 
Than a sea-gull's wing, brought nearer by rough 

weather ; 
Searching the treeless rock for fruits of light ; 
Her fair, quick feet being armed from stones and 
cold, 

By slippers of pure gold. 

MEMORY AND HOPE. 



June 16. 

That life is short and art long, appears to us more 
true than usual when we lie all day on a sofa, and 
are frightened at the east wind as if it were a tiger. 
Life is not only short but uncertain, and art is not 
only long but absorbing. What have I to do with 
writing scandal upon my neighbor's work when I 
have not finished my own ? 

MS. LETTERS. 



172 



June 15. 

Born.— Edward, the Black Prince, 1330. 

Thomas Randolph, 1605 
i>zV^. —Wat Tyler, 1381. 

Philip the Good, of Burgundy, 1467. 

Thomas Campbell, 1844. 



June i6. 

Born. — Edward I. of England, 1239. 
Died. —Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1666. 

John, Duke of Marlborough, 1722. 

Jean Baptiste Gresset, 1777. 



173 



June 17. 

I am no trumpet, but a reed : 

No flattering breath shall from me lead 

A silver sound, a hollow sound. 
I will not wring, for priest or king, 
One blast that in re-echoing 

Would leave a bondsman faster bound. 

I am no trumpet, but a reed — 
A broken reed, the wind mdeed 

Left flat upon a dismal shore ; 
Yet if a little maid, or child, 
Should sigh within it, earnest-mild, 

This reed will answer evermore. 



June 18. 

This life may be a condition only, and not a 
locality, and if we could see and hear with the 
subtlety of pure spirits, the faces of our beloved 
might be as close to us as the tears on ours, and 
their voices as audible as our own sighs for them. 
Sorrow, however, is one of the means of life, and 
we must needs endure it. It is good for us, like the 
cold which is seasonable. Perhaps, if we did not 
know it, we should not know (being quite incapable 
of receiving such knowledge in the abstract) what 
the joy is which is to come. 

MS. LETTERS. 



June 17. 

Born. — John Wesl^, 1703. 

Ferdinand Freilegrath, 1819. 
Died. — Joseph Addison, 1719, 

Richard H. Barham, 1845. 

Madame Henrietta Sontag, i854» 



June i8. 

Born.—^oh^xX. Stewart, Marquis of Londonderry, 

1769. 
Died. —Arthur Murphy, 1805. 
Wilham Coombs, 1823. 
William Cobbett, 1835. 



175 



June 19. 

IVe known the pregnant thinkers of this time 

And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips, 

When some chromatic sequence of fine thought 

In learned modulation phrased itself 

To an unconjectured harmony of truth. 

And yet I've been more moved, more raised, I say, 

By a simple word . . a broken easy thing, 

A three-years* infant might say after you — 

A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm. 

Which meant less than " I love you " . . than by all 

The full-voiced rhetoric of these master-mouths. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



June 20. 

If marriage be a contract, look to it then. 
Contracting parties should be equal, just ; 
But if a simple fealty on one side, 
A mere religion— right to give, is all, 
And certain brides of Europe duly ask 
To mount the pile, as Indian widows do. 
The spices of their tender youth heaped up, 
The jewels of their gracious virtues worn. 
More gems, more glory — to cpnsume entire 
For a living husband ! as the man's alive, 
Not dead — the woman's duty, by so much, 
Advanced in England, beyond Hindostan. 

AURORA LEIGH, 
176 



June 19. 

Borfi.— James I. of England, 1566. 

Blaise Pascal, 1623, 
Died. —Dr. William Sherlock, 17070 

Sir Joseph Banks, 1820. 



June 20. 



Born.— Dr. Adam Ferguson, 1723. 

Anne Letitia Barbauld, 1743. 
Died. —Anna Maria Porter, 1832. 

William IV. of England, 1837, 



177 



June 21. 

Yet we do not despise Skelton : despise him ? 
The man is very strong ; he tramples, foams, is 
rabid, in the sense of strength; he mesmerizes our 
souls with the sense of strength — it is as easy to 
despise a wild beast in the forest as John Skelton, 
poet laureate. He is as like a wild beast as a poet 
laureate can be. In his wonderful dominion over 
language, he tears it, as with teeth and paws, 
ravenously, savagely; devastating, rather than creat- 
ing, dominant rather for liberty than dignity. It is. 
the very sans-culottism of eloquence ; the oratory of 
a Silenus drunk with anger only. 



THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



June 22. 

If a man 
Could make a man, he'd henceforth be a god 
In feeling what a little thing is man. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



.17S 



June 21. 

Born. — 

Died. — John Skelton, 1529. 

Captain John Smith, 1631c 
Sir Inigo Jones, 1651. 



June 22. 

Born. — Jacques Delisle, 1738. 

Thomas Day, 1748. 
Died. — Nicholas Machiavelli, 1327. 

Catharine PhiUps (Orinda), 1664. 

B. R. Haydon, 1846. 



179 



June 23. 

So Leibnitz err'd ; when, in the starry hour, 
He read no weakness where was written, *^ Power ;* 
Beheld the verdant earth, the circling sea ; 
Nor dreamt so fair a world could cease to be ! 
Yea ! but he heard the Briton's awful name. 
As, scattering darkness, in his might, he came, 
Girded with Truth, and earnest to confute 
What gave to Matter Mind's best attribute. 
Sternly they shone — th' unequal race was run ! 
The owlet met the eaglet at the sun. 

ESSAY ON MIND. 



June 24, 

I think I hear him, how he cried 

" My own souls life '" between their notes. 
Each man has but one soul supplied, 

And that's immortal. Though his throat's 
On fire with passion now, to her' 

He can't say what to me he said ! 
And yet he moves her, they aver. 

The nightingales sing through my head. 
The nightingales, the nightingales. 

BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES. 
180 



June 23. 

Born.— Gottirled Wilhelm Leibnitz, 1646. 
Dzed. — Mark Akenside, 1770. 

James Mill, 1836. 

Lady Hester Stanhope, 1839. 



June 24. 

Born. — John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, 1650, 
Josephine, Empress of the French, 1763, 
Alexandre Dumas, 1803, 

Died. — Vespasian, 79. 

John Hampden, 1643. 



181 



June 25. 

What the poet writes, 
He writes : mankind acceptsxit if it suits, 
And that's success :. if not, the poem's passed 
From hand to hand, and yet from hand to hand, 
Until the unborn snatch it, crying out 
In pity on their fathers' being so dull, 
And that's success too. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



June 26. 

And the sun and I together 

Went a-rushing out of doors ! 

We, our tender spirits, drew 

Over hill and dale in view, 
Glimmering hither, glimmering thither, 

In the footsteps of the showers. 

Underneath the chestnuts dripping, 
Through the grasses wet and fair. 
Straight I sought my garden-ground, 
With the laurel on the mound, 

And the pear-tree over-sweeping 
A side- shadow of green air. 

HECTOR IN THE GARDEN. 
182 



June 25. 

Born. — John Home Tooke, 1736, 
Died. —John Marston, 1634. 

J. C. L. de Slsmondi, 184 
Louis Bonaparte, 1846. 



June 26. 

Born. — Dr. Philip Doddridge, 1702. 

George Morland, 1763. 
Died. —Francisco Pizarro, 1541. 

Ralph Cudworth, i63S. 

Rev. Gilbert White, "1793. 

George IV. of England, 1830, 



183 



June 27. 

If He once, in the first creation-week, 
Called creatures good — forever afterward. 
The Devil only has done it, and his heirs, 
The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose 
The world's grown dangerous. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



June 28. 

I wonder if Pygmalion had these doubts, 
And, feeling the hard marble first relent, 
Grow supple to the'straming of his arms, 
And tingle through its cold to his burning lip, 
Supposed his senses mocked, and that the toil 
Of stretching past the known and seen, to reach 
The archetypal Beauty out of sight, 
Had made his heart beat fast enough for two. 
And with his own life dazed and blinded him ! 
Not so ; Pygmalion loved — and who loves 
Believes the impossible. 

AURORA LEIGH, 
184 



June 27. 

Born.— houi^ XIL of France, 1462. 

Charles IX. of France, 1550. 

Charles XII. of Sweden, 1682, 
Z>zV^. — Abbe de Chaulieu, 1740. 

Dr. William Dodd, 1777. 

John Murray, 1843. 



June 28. 

Born. — Henry VIII. of England, 14910 

Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1577. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712. 

Charles Mathews, 1776, 
Died. — Thomas Creech, 1701. 

Charles Mathews, 1835. 

Lord Raglan, 1855. 



185 



June 29. 

It was as if an oyster had the wings of an eagle, 
and lighted on Teneriffe. How could he be expected 
to think any more of his sandbank, or even of the 
curlew's cry associated with his former immobility ? 
/ who ain not naturally an oyster, but had an 
oyster's life thrust upon me, / could think of noth- 
ing but the new budding of the new wings, —but of 
the beating of my own heart. I forgot how to write 
and read. Try if you can understand. 

MS. LETTERS. 



June 30. 

Ah, my friend ! the antique drinkers 

Crowned the cup and crowned the brow. 
Gan I answer the old thinkers 

In the forms they thought of, now ? • 
Who will fetch from garden-closes 

Some new garlands while I speak, 
That the forehead, crowned with roses, 

May strike scarlet down the cheek? 

WINE OF CYPRUS. 

186 



June 29. 

Born.—Sw Henry Yelverton, 1566. 

Celia Thaxter, 1835. 
Died' — Henry Clay, 1852. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 18 



June 30. 

Born — 

Z>?Vflf. —Alexander Brome, 1666. 

James Silk Buckingham, 18550 



187 



July i. 

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, 

Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions 

Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance, 

And answers roar for roar as spirits can ! 

I would some mild miraculous thunder ran 

Above the applauded circus, in appliance 

Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science, 

Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, 

From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place 

With holier light ! That thou to woman's claim. 

And man's, might join beside the angel's grace 

.Of a pure genius sanctified from blame : 

Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace. 

To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame. \ 



July 2. 

How sure it is. 
That, if we say a true word, instantly 
We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on 
As bread at sacrament, we taste and pass 
Nor handle for a moment, as indeed 
We dared to set up any claim to such ! 



AURORA LEIGH. 



And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, 
Expresses ne'er another beast than man. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

188 



July i. 

Born.— Bishop Joseph Hall, 1574. 

Louis Joseph, Due de Vendome, 1654. 

Adam Viscount Duncan, 1731. 

George Sand, 1804. 
Dzed. — Admirable Crichton, 15820 

Isaac Casaubon, 1614 

Lord Holland, 1774. 



July 2. 

Born. — Archbishop Cranmer, 1489. 

Frederick Theophilus Klopstock, 1724. 

Joseph John Gurney, 1788. 
Died, — Henry 1. Emperor of Germany, 936. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1778. 

Dionissius Diderot, 1784. 

Sir Robert Peel, 1850. 



189 



July 3. 

We're all so — made so — 'tis our woman's trade 
To suffer torment for another's ease. 
The world's male chivalry has perished out, 
But women are knights-errant to the last ; 
And, if Cervantes had been greater still, 
He had made his Don a Donna. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



July 4. 

He paused and drew his sword out slow, — 
Then pored upon the blade intent 
As if to read some written thing : 

While many murmured, ** He will go 
In that despairing sentiment 
And break his sword before the King." 

He poring still upon the blade 

His large lid quivered, something fell, 
' ' Perhaps," he said, *' I was not born 

With such fine brains to treat and trade, 
And if a woman knew it well 
Her falsehood only meant her scorn." 

^ GARIBALDI. 



July 3. 

Born. — Louis XL of France, 1423. 

Henry Grattan, 1750. 
Died. — Mary de'Medicis, 1642. 



July 4. 

^^r/?.— Christian Gellert, 1715. 

Guiseppi Garibaldi, 18070 
Z??>^. —Samuel Richardson, 1761. 

Fisher Ames, 1804. 

John Adams, i'826. 

Thomas Jefferson, 1826. 



igi 



July 5. 

And yet, forbid, 
That any irreverent fancy or conceit 
Should litter in the Drama's throne-room where 
The rulers of our art, in whose full veins 
Dynastic glories mingle, sit in strength 
And do their kingly work, — conceive, command, 
And, from the imagination's crucial heat. 
Catch up their men and women all aflame 
P'or action, all alive and forced to prove 
Their life by living out heart, brain, and nerve, 
Until mankind makes witness, " These be men, 
As we are," and vouchsafes the greeting due 
To Imogen and Juliet^ — sweetest kin 
On art's side. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



July 6. 

I have a heart which runs like a race-horse, leaps 
like a hunter, and stands still like a mule, all in 
the course of one mornmg, so that I am sometimes 
forced to be quiet, and think' of life, death, and the 
wind. Upon the whole my health does improve, I 
think. And two summers sewn together might re- 
new me, I fancy. But I live upon a point, on the 
spire of a church, liable to precipitation every in- 
stant, which is no reason, however, why I should 
write so much about it. 

MS. LETTERS. 



July 5. 

Born.— Mrs. Sarah Siddons, 1755. 
Died.—Si\r Robert Strange, 1792. 

Mrs. Dorothea Jordan, 1816. 



July 6. 

Born. — John Flaxman, 1755. 
Died. —S\r Thomas More, 1535. 

Edward VI. of England, 1553. 

Michael Bruce, 1767. 

Sir Henry Raeburn, 1823. 

D.M. Moir, 1851. 

Sir Francis Palgrave, 1861. 

Samuel Lover, 1868. 



193 



July 7. 

My childhood from my life is parted, 
My footstep from the moss which drew 
Its fairy circle round : anew 
The garden is deserted. 

Another thrush may there rehearse 
The madrigals which sweetest are ; 
No more for me ! — myself afar 
Do sing a sadder verse. 

Ah me, ah me ! when erst I lay 
In that child's-nest so greenly wrought, 
I laughed unto myself and thought 
** The time will pass away." 



THE DESERTED GARDEN. 



July 8. 

Ay, and while your common men 
Build pyramids, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine. 
And dust the flaunty carpets of the world 
For kings to walk on, or our senators. 
The poet suddenly will catch them up 
With his voice like a thunder . . *' This is soul. 
This is life, this word is being said in heaven, 
Here's God down us ! what are you about ? " 
How all those workers start amid their work. 
Look round, look up, and feel, a moment's space. 
That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade. 
Is not the imperative labor after all, 

AURORA LEIGH, 
194 



July 7. 

Born, — Emperor Nicholas of Russia, 1796. 
Died. — Edward I. of England, 1307. 

Dr. Thomas Blacklock, 1791. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1816. 



July 8. 

Born. — Jean do la Fontaine, i62i„ 
Z)/^^.— Peter the Hermit, 1108. 

Dr. Robert South, 1716. 

Edmund Burke, 1797. 

Sir Edward Parry, 1855. 



195 



July 9. 

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 

Down in the reeds by the river ? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban, 
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 
With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 
From the deep cool bed of the river : 
The limpid water turbidly ran, 
And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 
And the dragon-fly had fled away, 
Ere he brought it out of the river. 

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. 



July 10. 

We pray together at the kirk. 

For mercy, mercy solely. 
Hands weary with the evil work. 

We lift them to the Holy. 
The corpse is calm below our knee. 

Its spirit bright before Thee — 
Between them, worse than either, we — 

Without the rest of glory ! 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 
196 



July 9. 

Born. — Alexis Piron, 1689. 

Ann RadclifCe, 1764. 

Henry Hallam, 1777. 
Died. — General Edward Braddock, 17550 

General Zachary Taylor, 1850. 



July io. 

Born.- ']ohn Calvin, 1509. 

Dr. William Blackstone, 1723. 

Captain Frederick Marry att, 1792. 
Died. — Emperor Adrian, 138. 

William, Prince of Orange, 1584. 

David Rittenhouse, 1796, 



197 



July ii. 

Good love, howe'er ill-placed, 
Is better for a man's soul in the end, 
Than if he loved ill what deserves love well. 
A pagan, kissing, for a step of Pan, 
The wild-goat's hoof-print on the loamy down, 
Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back 
The strata . . granite, limestone, coal, and clay. 
Concluding coldly with, " Here's law ! Where's 
God?" 



AURORA LEIGH. 



July 12. 

Children use the fist 
Until they are of age to use the brain ; 

And so we needed Caesars to assist 

Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain 

God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed, 
Until our generations should attain 

Christ's stature nearer. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 

198 



July ii. 

Born. — Robert I. of Scotland 1274- 

Joseph Jerome Francis de Laland, 1732., 
Died. —Jack Cade, 1450, 

Charles Macklin, 1797. 

Alexander Hamilton. 1804. 



July 12. 

Born. — Caius Julius Caesar, loo b. c. 

Henry David Moreau, 1817. 
Died. — Desiderius Erasmus, 1536. 

Horace Smith, 1847. 

Robert Stephenson, 1850. 



199 



July 13. 

I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike 
A sense of death to me, and undug graves ! 
The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like 

The ragged foam along the ocean-waves : 
The restless earthquakes rock against each other. 
The elements moan 'round me — *' Mother, 
mother ! " — 

And I wail ! 

Your melancholy looks do pierce me through ; 

Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty ! 
Why have ye done this thing ? What did we do 

That we should fall from bliss as ye from duty ? 
Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses. 
Fierce howl the wolves along the wildernesses — 
And I wail ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



July 14. 

Alas, I still see something to be done. 
And what I do falls short of what I see 
Though I waste myself on doing. Long green days 
Worn bare of grass and sunshine — long calm nights. 
From which the silken sleeps were fretted out- 
Be witness for me, with no amateur's 
Irreverent haste and busy idleness 
I've set myself to art ! 

AURORA LEIGH. 
200 



July 13. 

Born.— 'Richsird Cumberland, Bishop of Peterboro, 

1632. 
Z>?V^ .— Bertrand du Guesclin, 1380. 

Richard Cromwell, 1712. 

Elijah Fen ton, 1730. 

Jean Paul Marat, 1793. 

Rev. John Lingard, 1851. 



July 14, 

Born. — Cardinal Mazarin, 1602. 

Sir Robert Strange, 1721. 

John Hunter, 1728. 
Died. — Dr. Richard Bentley, 1742. 

Baroness de Stael Holstein, 18170 



201 



July 15. 

High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 

While turbidly flowed the river ; 
And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, 
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed 
To prove it fresh from the river. 

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, 
(How tall it stood in the river !) 

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 

Steadily from the outside ring, 

And notched the poor dry empty thing 
In holes, as he sat by the river. 

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. 



July 16. 
And as one Love takes flight, 
Comes another, O swallow, 
In an egg warm and white. 
And another is callow. 
And the large gaping beaks 
Chirp all day and all night.: 
And the Loves who are older 
Help the young and the poor Loves, 
And the young Loves grown bolder 
Increase by the score Loves — 
Why, what can be done ? 
If a noise comes from one, [Loves ? 

Can I bear all this rout of a hundred and more 

PARAPHRASE ON ANACREON. 
202 



July 15. 

Born. — Gerard Langbaine, 1656. 
Died. — Thomas Dermody, 1802. 

William Mackworth Praed, 1839. 

Prince Adam Czartoryski, 1861. 



July i6. 

Born. — Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1723. 
Z>/V^.— Tommaso Anielo, 1647. 

Dr. Thomas Yalden, 1736. 

Peter IIL, Czar of Russia, 1762. 

Pierre Jean de Beranger, 1857. 



203 



July 17. 

Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on ! 
It holds fast still — it cracks not under curse ; 
It holds like mine immortal. Presently 
We'll sow it thick enough with graves as green 
Or greener, certes, than its knowledge-tree 
We'll have the cypress for the tree of life, ' 
More eminent for shadow — for the rest 
We'll build it dark with towns and pyramids, 
And temples, if it please you : — we'll have feasts 
And funerals also, merrymakes ahd wars, 
Till blood and wine shall mix and run along 
Right o'er the edges. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 

0>« ■ 



July 18. 

And Petrarch pale. 

From whose brain-lighted heart were thrown 
A thousand thoughts beneath the sun, 
Each lucid with the name of One. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

I would but turn these lachrymals to' use. 

And pour fresh oil in from the olive grove, 
To furnish them as new lamps. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 
204 



July 17. 

Born. — Dr. Isaac Watts, 1674. 
Died. — Jacques von Arteveldt, 1344. 

Marchioness de Brinvilliers, 1676. 

Charlotte Corday, 1793. 



July i8. _ 

Bonz.^Dr, John Dee, 1527. 

Gilbert White, 1720. 
X>iV^.— Pope John XVIIT., 1009. 

Godfrey of Bouillon, iioo. 

Francisco Petrarch, 1374. 

Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London, 1761, 



205 



July 19. 

If I were thou, O butterfly, 

And poised my purple wing to spy 

The sweetest flowers that live and die, 

I would not waste my strength on those, 
As thou — for summer has a close. 
And pansies bloom not in the snows. 

WISDOM UNAPPLIED. 



July 20. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; 

I love thee w^ith the passion put to use 

In my own griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seem to lose 

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath. 

Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 



206 



July 19, 

Born. — John Martin, i^sg. 

Died. —William Somerville, 1742. 

Professor John Playfair, 1819. 

Augustus Iturbide, 1824. 



July 20. 

^^r«.— Francisco Petrarch, 1304. 

Eusebius Renandot, 1646. 

August de Marmont, Due de Ragusa, 1774. 

Sultan Mahmoud IL, 1785. 

John Sterling, 1806. 
Died. — John Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester, 1650. 

William Scrope, 1852. 

Caroline Anne Southey, 1854. 



207 



July 21. 

Thou lovest me not, thou lovest me not ! 

'Tis scarcely worth a sigh : 
Let me look in tjiy face, and no king in his place 

Is a gladder man than I. 

Thon hatest me well, thou hatest me well — 

Thy little red mouth has told : 
Let it reach me a kiss, and, however it is, 

My child, I am well consoled. 

PARAPHRASE ON HEINE. 

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear. 

Woman's love no fable, 

/ will love thee — half a year — 

As a man is able. 

A man's requirements. 



July 22. 

Beauty, who softly walkest all thy days, 

In silken garment to the tunes of praise ; 

Love, whose dreamings by the green-banked river, 

Where once she wandered, fain would last forever ; 

King, whom the nations scan, adoring scan, 

And shout *' a god " when sin hath marked the man; 

Bard, on whose brow the Hyblan dew remains, 

Albeit the fever burneth in the veins ; 

Hero, whose sword with tyrant's blood is hot ; 

Skeptic, who doubting, would'st be doubted not ; 

Man, whosoe'r thou art, whate'er thy trust, — 

Respect thyself in me : thou treadest dust, 

EPITAPH. 

208 



July 21. 

Born.— Msiithew Prior. 1664. 

Died. — Darius III. King of Persia, 330 b. c. 

William, Lord Russell, 1683. 

Robert Burns, 1796. 



July 22. 

^^r«.— Anthony Astley Cooper, Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, 1621. 
Died.—'^\x Henry Percy, 1403. 

Henri HL of France, 1461. 

Pope Clement X., 1678. 

Joseph Piazzi, 1826. 



209 



July 23. 

I wish I could send you news from the old world, 
but I scarcely sit by the windows of it. Except in 
books, I see no life. I lie on the sofa in my room, 
and hear only the movements of my own soul. 

MS. LETTERS. 



July 24. 

Love you seek for, presupposes 
Summer heat and sunny glow. 

Tell me, do you find moss roses 
Buddmg, blooming in the snow? 

Snow might kill the rose-tree^s root — 

Shake it quickly from your foot, 
Lest it harm you as you go. 

From the ivy where it dapples 

A gray ruin, stone by stone — 
Do you look for grapes or apples, 

Or for sad green leaves alone ? 
Pluck the leaves off, two or three — 
Keep them for morality 

When you shall be safe and gone. 

QUESTION AND ANSWER, 
210 



July 23. 

Born.— Godirey Olearius, 1672. 
Died. — Viscount Alexander de Beauharnais, 1794. 
Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, 1816, 



July 24. 

Born. — Rev. John Newton, 1725. 

John Phil pot Curran, 1750. 
Died. — Caliph Abubeker, 634. 

Don Carlos, son of Philip IL of Spain, 1568, 

George Virtue, 1756. 

John Dyer, 1758. 

Jane Austin, 1817. 



211 



July 25. 

Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God : 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes, 
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries, 
And daub their natural faces unaware 
More and more, from the first similitude. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Visionary Coleridge, who 

Did sweep his thoughts as angels do 

Their wings, with cadence up the Blue. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



July 26. 

But soft ! — a ** poet " is a word soon said ; 
A book's a thing soon written. Nay, indeed, 
The more the poet shall be questionable, 
The more unquestionably comes his book ! 
And this of mine — well, granting to myself 
Some passion in it, furrowing up the flats, 
Mere passion will not prove a volume worth 
Its gall and rags even. Bubbles round a keel 
Mean nought, excepting that the vessel moves. 
There's more than passion goes to make a man. 
Or book, which is a man too. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
212 



July 25. 

Born. — Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, 1758. 
Died. — Thomas a Kempis, 1471. 

Charles Dibdin, 1814. 

William Sharp, 1824. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1834, 

James Kenney, 1849. 



July 26. 

Born. — Henry VH. Kingof England, 1450, 
Z>?V<ar.— King Roderick of Spain, 711. 

Pope Paul n., 147 1. 

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 1680. 

John Emery, 1822. 



213 



July 27. 

To some Utopian strand, some fairy shore, 

Shall soft-eyed Fancy waft her Campbell o'er. 

Wont o'er the lyre of Hope his hand to fling, 

And never waken a discordant string; 

Who ne'er grows awkward by affecting grace, 

Or *' common sense confounds with common-place:" 

To bright conception adds expression chaste. 

And human feeling joins to classic taste, 

For still, with magic art, he knows, and knew, • 

To touch the heart, and win the judgment too. 

ESSAY ON MIND. 



July 28. 
Cowley was coarsely curious : he went to the 
shambles for his chambers of imagery, and very 
often through the mud. All which faults appear to 
us attributable ta his coldness of temperament, and 
his defectiveness in the instinct towards Beauty ; to 
having the intellect only of a great poet, not the 
sensibility. . . . His translations, or rather para- 
phrases of Anacreon, are absolutely the most per- 
fect of any English compositions of their order. 
His other poems contain profuse material, in image 
and reflection, for the accomplishment of three 
poets, each greater than himself. He approached 
the beautiful and true as closely as mere Fancy 
could ; but that very same Fancy, unfixed by feeling, 
too often, in the next breath, approximated him to 
the hideous and the false — the book of the poets. 
214 



July 27. 

Born.— Thomas Campbell, 1777. 

George Biddell Airy, i8ot. 
Died. —James I. King of Aragon, 1276. 

Henri Mardchal de Turenne, 1675. 

Pierre Louis de Maupertuis, 1749. 

Dr. John Dalon, 1844. 



July 28. 

Born. — Jacopo Sannazaro, 1458. 
Died. — Richard Corbet, 1635. 

Abraham Cowley, 1667. 

Maximilian Isidore Robespierre, 1794. 



215 



July 29. 

There's not a flower of spring, 
That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied 
By issue and symbol, by significance 
And correspondence, to that spirit-world 
Outside the limits of our space and time. 
Whereto we are bound. Let poets give it voice 
With human meanings ; else they miss the thought, 
And henceforth step down lower, stand confessed, 
Instructed poorly for interpreters — 
Thrown out by an easy cowslip in the text. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



July 30, 

Gray, studious, and sitting in the cold, learnt tlie 
secret of a simulated and innocent fire (the Greek 
fire he might have called it), which burns beautifully 
to the eye, but would never have harmed M. 
Henault's ruffles. 

THE BOOK OF THE I'OETS. 



216 



July 29. 

Born.— Albert I, Emperor of Germany, 12 
Z>/i'^.— Andrew Marvel I, 1678. 

Anna Selina Storace, 1814. 

William Wilberforce, 1833. 

Dr. Thomas Dick, 1857. 



July ^o. 

Born. — Angelo Poliziana, 1454. 

Samuel Rogers, 1763. 
Z>/ed. — Maria Theresa, 1683. 

William Penn, 1718. 

John Sebastian Bach, 1750. 

Thomas Gray, 1771. 



217 



July 31. 

Inquire still less, what signifies a church 
Of perfect inspiration and pure laws, 

Who burns the first man with a brimstone-torch, 
And grinds the second, bone by bone, because 

The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch! 
What is a holy Church unless she awes 

The times down from their sins. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 




218 



July 31. 

Born. — 

Died. —Ignatius Loyola, 1556. 
Denis Diderot, 1784. 




219 



August i. 

Free Heart, that singest to-day, 
Like a bird on the first green spray, 
Wilt thou go forth to the world. 
Where the hawk hath his wing unfurled, 

To follow, perhaps, thy way ? 
Where the tamer, thine own will bind. 
And, to make thee sing, will blind. 
While the little hip grows for the free behind ? 
Heart, wilt thou go ? 
— *' No, no ! 
Free hearts are better so." 

CALLS ON THE HEART. 



August 2. ^ 

Behold this rose ! 
I plucked it in our bower of Paradise 
This morning as I went forth : and my heart 
Hath beat against its petals all the day. 
I thought it would be always red and full 
As when I plucked it. — Is it ? — Ye may see ! 
I cast it down to you that ye may see, 
All of you ! — count the petals lost of it — 
And note the colors fainted ! ye may see ; ^ 
And I am as it is, who yesterday 
Grew in the same place. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE, 
220 



August i. 

Born. — Tiberius Claudius, b. c. ii. 
Died. — Cosmo de'Medicis, 1464. 

Richard Savage, 1743. 

Elizabeth Inchbald, 1821. 

Harriet Lee, 1851, 



August 2. 

Born. — Pope Leo XIL, 1760. 

Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, 1802. 
Died. — ^William XL King of England (Rufus), noo. 

Etienne Bonnet de Condillac, 1780. 

Thomas Gainsborough, 1788. 

Mehemet Ali, 1840. 



221 



August 3. 

Methinks we do as fretful children do, 

Leaning their faces on the window-pane 

To sigh the glass dim with their own breathes stain, 

And shut the sky and landscape from their view. 

And thus, alas ! since God the maker drew 

A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, 

The life beyond us, and our souls in pain. 

We miss the prospect which we are called unlo 

By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, 

O man, my brother ! hold thy sobbing breath, 

And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong, — 

That so, as life's appointment issueth, 

Thy vision may be clear to watch along 

The sunset consummation-lights of death. 



SONNETS. 



August 4. 

And the lark, with more of mirth 
In his song than suits the earth, 
Droppeth some in soaring high. 
To pour the rest out in the sky — sounds. 
The yearning to a beautiful denied you. 

Shall strain your powers. 
Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you, 

Resumed from ours. 
In all your music, our pathetic minor 

Your ears shall cross ; 
And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner. 
With sense of loss. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



August 3. 

Born. — John (Orator) Henley, 1692. 

Died. — Jeremy Taylor, 1667. 

Sir Richard Arkwright, 17920 
Christopher Anstey, 1805. 
Eugene Sue, 185^ 



August 4. 

^<?r/?.— Joseph Justus Scaliger, 1540. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792. 
Died, — William Cecil, Tord Burleigh, 1598. 

William Cave, 1713. 

John Banim, 184? 



223 



August 5. 

W^ sow the glebe, we reap thfe corn, 
' We build the house where we may rest ; 
And then, at moments, suddenly. 
We look up to the great wide sky, 
Enquiring wherefore we were born . . 
For earnest, or for jest ? 

HUMAN life's MYSTERY. 



August 6. 



At Jonson's name we stop perforce, and do salu- 
tation in the dust to that " learned sock." He was 
a learned man, as everybody knows ; and, as every- 
body does not know, not the worse for his learning. 
His material, brought laboriously from the East and 
West, is wrapt in a flame of his own. If the elas- 
ticity of Shakespeare and of certain of Shakespeare's 
brothers, is not found in his writings, the reason 
of the defect need not be sought out of his readings. 
His genius, high and verdant as it grew, yet belonged 
to the hard woods ; it was lance-wood rather than 
bow-wood — a genius rather noble than graceful — 
eloquent with a certain severity and emphasis of 
enunciation. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 
224 



August 5. 

Born.—John, Lord Wrottesley, 1798. 
Died. — Xerxes I. King of Persia, b. c. 465. 

Frederick, Lord North, 1799. 

Richard, Lord Howe, 1799. 

Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of Lon- 
don, 1857. 



August 6. 

Born, — Nicholas Malebranche, 163S . 

Archbishop Fenelon, 1651. 
Died. — Anne Shakespeare, 1623. 

Ben Jonson, 1637. 

Diego Rodriguez de Velasquez, 1660. 



225 



August 7. 

Lady diademed with honor, whence 
And whither goest thou ? Thy look presents 
Tears to the lid, thy mien is vext and low, 
Thy locks fall wildly from thy drooping brow, 
Thy blushes all are pale, thy garb is fit 
For mourning in, and shoon and zone are loose ! 
So changed thou art to sadness every whit. 
And all that pomp and purple thou didst use. 
That seemly sweet, that new rose on the mouth. 
Those fair-smoothed tresses, and that graceful zone, 
Bright sandals, and the rest thou haddest on, 
Are all departed, gone to naught together ! 

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 



August 8. 

O ROSE 1 who dares to name thae ? 
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet ; 
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, — 

Kept seven years in a drawer — thy titles shame 
thee. 

The breeze that used to blow thee 
Between the hedge-row thorns, and take away 
An odor up the lane to last all day, — [thee. 

If breathing aow, — unsweetened would forego 

The sun that used to smite thee, 
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn. 
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn — 

If shining now — with not a hue would light thee. 

A DEAD ROSE. 
226 



August 7. 

Born. — Adam von Bartsch, 1757. 

Joseph Rodman Drake, 1795. 
Died. — Leonidas, b. c. 480. 

Herod Agrippa, 44. 

Henry VI. of Germany, 1106. 

Caroline of Brunswick, 1821. • 



August 8. 



Born. — Jacques Basnage de Beauval, 1653. 

Francis Hutcheson, 1694. 
Died. — Pope Alexander VI., 1503. 

Dr. Antoine Arnauld, 1694. 

George Canning, 1827. 

Thomas Crofton Croker, 1852. 



227 



August 9. 

And then came ''glorious John," with the whole 
fourth era in his arms ; — and eloquent above the 
sons of men, to talk down, thunder down poetry as 
it were an exhalation. . . . He had a large soul for 
a man, containing sundry Queen Anne's men, one 
with another, like quartetto tables ; but it was not a 
large soul for a poet, and it entertained the universe 
by potato-patches. He established finally the reign 
of the literati for the reign of the poets — and the 
critics clapped their hands. He established finally 
the despotism of the final emphasis, — and no one 
dared, in affecting criticism, to speak any more at 
all against a tinkling cymbal. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



August 10. 



Pray, pray, thou who also weepest. 

And the drops will slacken so. 
Weep, weep — and the watch thou keepest. 

With a quicker count will go. 
Think — the shadow on the dial 

For the nature most undone, 
Marks the passing of the trial, 

Proves the presence of the sun. 

THE FOURFOLD ASPECT. 

228 



August 9. 

Born.—lza.ak Walton, 1593. 

John Dryden, 1631. 

John Oldham, 1653. 
Died. — Simon Ockley, 1720. 

Robert Potter, 1804. 

Mrs. Charles Mathews, 



August io. 

Born. — Sir Charles James Napier, 17820 
Died, — Henrietta Maria, 1669. 

John deWitt, 1762. 

Cornelius deWitt, 1762. 

John Wilson Croker, 1857. 



229 



August n. 

But I do not like giving my name to anything 
about the theaters. ... At their best, take the 
ideal of them, and the soul of the Drama is far 
above the stage ; and according to present and per- 
haps all past regulations in this country, dramatic 
poetry has been desecrated into the dust of our 
treading, — yes, and too often forced to desecration 
and drawn down morally in turn, by the stage. 
When the poet has his gods in the gallery, what 
must be the end of it ? -Why, that even Shakespeare 
should bow his starry head oftener than Homer 
nodded, and write down his pure genius into the 
dirt of the groundlings, for the sake of their " most 
sweet voices," and even so be outwitted in popu- 
larity by his half-brother noble geniuses, Beaumont 
and Fletcher, because they stooped still Jower. 

LETTERS TO HORNE, 



August 12. 

What thousand scribblers, of our age, would choose 
To throw a toga round the English Muse ; 
Rending her garb of ease, which graceful grew, 
From Dryden's loom, beprankt with varied hue ! 
In that dull aim, by Mind unsanctified, 
What thousand Wits would have their wits belied, 
Devoted Southey ! if thou had'st not tried. 

ESSAY ON MIND. 
230 



August ii. 

Born.— Thomas Betterton, X635. 

Dr. Richard Mead, 1673. 

Joseph Nollekins, 1737. 

Jean Victor Moreau, 1763. 
Died, — General Sir Samuel Auchmuty, 1822. 



August 12. 



Born. — Thomas Bewick, 1753. 

Robert Southey, 1774. 

Francis Horner, 1778. 
Died. — Nahum Tate, 17 15. 

George Stephenson, 1848. 

William Daniel Conybeare, 1857. 



231 



August 13. 

Love me, O beloved. 
O thou, who stronger art, 
And standest ever near the Infinite, 
Pale with the light of Light! 

Love me, beloved ! me, more newly made, 

More feeble, more afraid ; 
And let me hear with mine thy pinions moved. 
As close and gentle as the loving are. 
That love being near, heaven may not seem so far. 

THE SERAPHIM. 



August 14. 

How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer ! 

The tall green poplars grew no longer straight, 
Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight 

For Athens, and not swear by Marathon ? 
Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight ? 

Or live, without some dead man's benison ? 
Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right, 

If, looking up, he saw not in the^sun 
Some angel of the martyrs all day long 

Standing and waiting ? 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 

232 



Born, — Dr. William Wotton, 1666. 

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 1743. 
Died. — Tiberius IL, Roman Emperor, 582. 

Francis Peck, 1743. 

Robert Plumer Ward, 1846. 



August 14. 

Born. — Meric Casaubon, 1599. 

Dr. Charles Hutton, 1737. 
Died. — Thomas Sheridan, 1788. 

George Colman, the Elder, 1704. 

Rev. Henry Francis Gary, 1844. 

Dr. William Buckland, 1856. 

George Combe, 1858. 



233 



August 15. 

I do distrust the poet who discerns 
No character or glory in his time, 
And trundles back his soul five hundred years, 
Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court. 
Oh not to sing of lizards or of toads 
Alive i' the ditch there ! — 'twere excusable , [lifter, 
But of some black chief, half knight, half sheep- 
Some beauteous dame, half chattel and half queen, 
As dead as must be, for the greater part. 
The poems made on their chivalric bones. 
And that's no wonder : death inherits death. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



August 16. 

O Life, 
How oft we throw it off and think — " Enough. 
Enough of life in so much ! — here's a cause 
For rupture ; — herein we must break with Life; 
Or be ourselves unworthy ; here we are wronged, 
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration ; farewell Life ! " 
— And so, as fro ward babes, we hide our eyes 
And think all ended. — Then, Life calls to us 
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice, 
Above us, or below us, or around . . 
Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, 
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed 
To own our compensations than our griefs : [Life. 
Still, Life's voice ! — still, we make our peace with 

AURORA LEIGH. 



August 15. 

Born. — Napoleon I , 1769. 

Sir Walter Scott, 1771. 

Thomas de Quincey, 1785. 
Died, — Alexius Comnenus, 1118. 

Gerard Noodt, 1725. 

Joseph Miller, 1738. 

Thomas Tyrwhitt, 1786. 



August i6. 

^^«.— Ralph Thoresby, 1658, 

Catharine Cockburn, 1679. 
Died. —Dr. Thomas Fuller, 1661. 

Jacques Bernoulli, 1705. 

Dr. Matthew Tindal, 1733. 

General Bartholomew Joubert,"i799. 



235 



August 17. 

Side by side with Chaucer comes Gower, who is 
ungratefully disregarded too often, because side by 
side with Chaucer. He who rides in the king's 
chariot will miss the people's "hie est." Could 
Gower be considered apart, there might be found 
signs in him of an independent royalty, however his 
fate may seem to lie in waiting forever in his broth- 
er's ante-chamber, like Napoleon's tame kings. To 
speak our mind, he has been much undervalued. He 
is nailed to a comparative degree, and everybody 
seems to make it a condition of speaking of him, 
that something be called inferior within him, and 
something superior out of him. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



August 18. 

** O dreary life ! " we cry, '* O dreary life ! " 

And still the generations of the birds 

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds 

Serenely live while we are keeping strife 

With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife 

Asgainst which we may struggle. Ocean girds 

Unslackened the dry land : savannah-swards 

Unweary sweep : hills watch, unworn ; and rife 

Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, 

To show above the unwasted stars that pass 

In their old glory. O thou god of old. 

Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these !— 

But so much patience, as a blade of grass 

Grows by contented through the heat and cold. 

SONNETS. 

236 



August 17. 

Born. — Thomas Stothard, 1755. 

Richard Lalor Shell, 1791. 
Died. — John Gower, 1408. 

Admiral Robert Blake, 1657. 

Madame Anne le Fevre Dacier, 1720. 

Frederick the Great, 1786. 



August i8. 



^ Born. — Dr. Henry Hammond, 1605. 
John Earl Russell, 1792. 
Thomas William Parsons, 1819. 
Died: — Guido Reni, 1642. 

William Boyd, Earl of Kilmarnock, 1746. 
Arthur, Lord Balmerino, 1746. 
Dr. James Beattie, 1803. 



237 



August 19. 

But I love you, sir : 
And when a woman says she loves a man, 
The man must hear her, though he love her not. 
Which . ^ hush ! . . he has leave to answer in his 

turn : 
She will not surely blame him. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



August 20. 

Never lark the sun can waken 
With such sweetness ! when the lark, 
The high planets overtaking 
In the half evanished dark. 
Cast his singing to their singing, like an arrow to 
the mark. 

Never nightingale so singeth — 
Oh ! she leans on thorny tree, 
And her poet song she flingeth 
Over pain to victory ! 
Yet she never sings such music, — or she sings it 
not to me. 

THE LOST BOWER. 

238 



August 19. 

Born. — Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, 1596. 

Gerhardt Vander Eckhout, 1621. 

John Flamstead, 1646. 

James Nasmyth, 1808. 
Died. — Octavius Caesar Augustus, 14. 

Blaise Pascal, 1662. 

Robert Bloomfield, 1823. 

Honore de Balzac, 1850. 



August 20. 



^^r;^.— Robert Herrick, 1591. 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 1592 

Louis Bourdaloue, 1632. 
Z>zV^.— Edward, Lord Herbert, f648. 

Joseph Spence, 1768. 

William Maginn, 1842. 



239 



August 21. 

Were I loveless, from thee gone, 
Love is round, beneath, above thee, 
God, the omnipresent One. 
Spread the wing, and lift the brow. 
Well-beloved, what fearest thou ? 

THE SERAPHIM. 



August 22. 

Could ye, *' We loved her once," 
Say calm of me^ sweet friends, when out of sight ? 

When hearts of better right 
Stand in between me and your happy light ? 
And when, as flowers kept too long in the shade, 

Ye find my colors fade, 
And all that is not love in me, decayed ? 

Such words — Ye loved me once ! 

LOVED ONCE. 



August 21. 

Born,—]3imes Crichton (The Admirable), 1561. 

St. Francis de Sales, 1567. 

William IV. of England, 1765. 
j^/ed.—'L^dy Mary Wortley Montagu, 1762. 



August 22. 

Born.— VhiWp Augustus II. of France, 1165. 

Aime Bonpland, 1773. 

Thomas Tredgold, 1788. 
Died. —Richard III. of England, 1485. 

William Whiston, 1752. 

George, Lord Lyttleton, 1773. 

Warren Hastings, 18 18. 

Dr. Franz Joseph Gall, 1828. 



241 



August 23. 

Faces ! — O my God, 
We call those, faces? men's and women's . . ay. 
And children's ; — babies, hanging like a rag 
Forgotten on their mother's neck — poor mouths, 
Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blow, 
Before they are taught her cursing. Faces . . phew, 
We'll call them vices festering to despairs, 
Or sorrows petrifying to vices : not 
A finger-touch of God left whole on them ; 
All ruined, lost — the countenance worn out 
As the garments, the will dissolute as the acts, 
The passions loose and draggling in the dirt 
To trip the foot up at the first free step ! 

AURORA LEIGH. 



August 24. 

We sit on hills our childhood wist, 

Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding : 
The sun strikes through the farthest mist. 

The city's spire to golden. 
The city's golden spire it was, 

When hope and health were strongest, 
But now it is the churchyard grass 

We look upon the longest. 

Be pitiful, O God ! 

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 
242 



August 23. 

Born.— Louis XVI. of France, 1754. 

Sir Astley Cooper, 1768. 

Frank Stone, 1800. 
jDzed. — Sir William Wallace, 1305. 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 162& 



August 24. 

Born. — Letitia Bonaparte, 1750. 

William Wilberforce, 1759. 
Died. — Cnseus Julius Agricola, 93. 

Admiral Gaspard de Coligni, 1572, 

Theodore Hook, 1841. 



243 



August 25. 

I have thrown 
One look upon earth, but one, 
Over the blue mountain-lines, 
Over the forests of palms and pines, 
Over the harvest-lands golden, 
Over the valleys that fold in 
The gardens and vines — 
He is not there. 

THE SKRAPHIM. 

Death upon his face 
Is rather shine than shade, 
A tender shine by looks beloved made. 

THE SERAPHIM. 



August 26. 

And bold De Vega — who breathed quick 
Verse after verse, till death's old trick 
Put pause to life and rhetoric. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



244 



August 25. 

^^^«.— Charles Etienne Louis Camus, 1699. 
Died. — Dr. David Hartley, 1757. 

Thomas Chatterton, 1770. 

David Hume, 1:776. 

James Watt, 1819. 

Sir William Herschel, 1822. 



August 26. 

Born.—^\r Robert V^alpole, 1676. 

Prince Albert, 1819. 
Died. —Lopez Felix de la Vega, 1635. 

Christopher Christian Sturm, 1786. 

Karl Theodore KOrner, 1813. 

Dr. Adam Clarke, 1832. 

Louis Philippe, 1850. 



245 



August 27. 

All the fields 
Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 
The hills are crumpled plains, — the plains parterres, 
The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped ; 
And if you seek for any wilderness 
You find, at best, a park. A nature tamed 
And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, 
Which does not awe you with his claws and beak, 
Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up, 
But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of 
Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause 
Of finer meditation. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



AUGUST 28. 

And Goethe — with that reaching eye 
His soul reached out from, far and high. 
And fell from inner entity. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

" I have the second sight, Goethe ! " 

LETTERS OF A CHILD. 

Bettine, friend of Goethe, 

Hadst thou the second sight — 

Upturning worship and delight 

With such a loving duty 

To his grand face, as women will. 

The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still ? 

TO BETTINE, 

246 



August 27. 

Born. — William Woollett, 1725. 
Died, — Annius Severinus Boethius, 526. 
James Thomson, 1748. 



August 28. 



Born. — John Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749. 
Died. — Hugo Grotius, 1645. 

Count Axel Oxenstiern, 1654. 

Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, 1731. 

John Hutchinson, 1737. 

Leigh Hunt, 1859. 



247 



August 29. 

Oh, ever thus, immortal Locke, belong 

First to my heart, as noblest in thy song ; 

And since in thee the muse enraptured find 

A moral greatness, and creating mind. 

Still may thine influence, which with honor'd light 

Beams while I read, illume me as I write ! 

The page too guiltless, and the soul too free, 

To call a frown from Truth, or blush from thee ! 

ESSAY ON MIND. 



August 30. 

Did I drop against his breast, 
Or did his arms constrain me? Were my cheeks 
Hot, overflooded, with my tears, or his ? 
And which of our two large explosive hearts 
So shook me ? That, I know not. There were words 
That broke in utterance . . melted in the fire ; 
Embrace that was convulsion, . . then a kiss . . 
As long and silent as the ecstatic night — 
And deep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant 

beyond 
Whatever could be told by word or kiss. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

248 



August 29. 

Born. — John Locke, 1632. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, li 
Died. — John Lilburne, 1657. 

Joseph Wright, 1797. 

William Brockedon, 1852. 



August 30. 

Born. — Dr. David Hartley, 1705. 

Johann Christopher Adelung, 1734. 

William Paley, 1743. 
Died. — Cleopatra, b. c. 30. 

Theodoric the Great, 526. 

Sultan SoUman H., 1566. 

Sir John Ross, 1855. 

Sir Richard Wcstmacott, 1856. 



249 



August 31. 

But if an angel spoke 
In thunder, should we, haply, know much more 
Than that it thundered ? If a cloud came down 
And wrapt us w^holly, could we draw its shape, 
As if on the outside, and not overcome ? 



AURORA LEIGH. 



The people, who are simple, blind, and rough. 
Know their own angels, after looking round. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 




250 



August 31. 

Born.—Qa.\\is Csesar Caligula, 12. 
Dzed. — Henry V, of England, 1422, 

John Bunyan, 1688. 

F. A, Darrican (Phillidor), 1795. 

Dr. James Curric, 1805. 




251 



September i. 

O we live, O we live — 

And this life that we perceive, 

Is a great thing and a grave, 

Which for others' use we have, 

Duty-laden to remain. 

We are helpers, fellow-creatures, 

Of the right against the wrong. 
We are earnest-hearted teachers 

Of the truth which maketh strong — 
Yet do we teach in vain ? 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



September 2. 

O my God, 
How sick we must be, ere we make men just ! 
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see 
How many desolate creatures on the earth 
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship 
And social comfort, in a hospital, 
As Marian did. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



September i. 

Born. — Edward Alleyn, 1506. 

Margaret, Countess of Blessington, 1789. 
Died, — Dr. Henry More, 1687. 

Louis XIV. of France, 1715. 

Eusebius Renandot, 1720. 

Sir Richard Steele, 1729. 



September 2. 

Born. — John Howard, 1726. 

Died. — Maria Therese, Princess de Lamballe, 1792. 



253 



September 3. 

Thou knowest, though thy universe is broad, 
Two little tears suffice to cover all. 
Thou knowest, thou, who art so prodigal 
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer 
Expiring in the woods — that care for none 
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon. 

THE soul's travelling. 



September 4. 

Electric Pindar, quick as fear, 

With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear 

Slant startled eyes that seem to hear 

The chariot rounding the last goal. 
To hurtle past it in his soul. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



254 



September 3. 

Born. — Sir John Soane, 1753. 

Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, 1781. 
Died. —Richard Tarleton, 1588. 

Sir Edward Coke, 1734. 

Claudius Salmasius, 1653. 

Oliver Cromwell, 1638. 

George Lillo, 1739, 

Joseph Ritson, 1803. 



September 4. 

Born.—V\r\di2.r^ b. c 518. 

Jean Galeazzo Visconti, T402. 

Francois R^ne, Vicomte de Chateau- 
briand, 1768. 
Died. — John Cervinus Huniades, 1456. 

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1588. 

Charles Townsend, 1767. 



255 



September 5. 

All my losses did I tell you, 
Ye, perchance, would look away ; — 
Ye would answer me, '* Farewell ! you 
Make sad company to-day ; 
And your tears are falling faster than the bitter 
words you say." 

For God placed me like a dial 
In the open ground, with power ; 
And my heart had for its trial 
All the sun and all the shower ! 
And I suffered many losses ; and my first was of the 
bower. 

THE LOST BOWER. 



September 6. 

Hast heard that Proserpina 
(Once fooling) was snatched away, 
To partake the dark king's seat, — 
And there the tears ran fast on her feet, 

To think how the sun shone yesterday? 
With her ankles sunken in asphodel 
She wept for the roses of earth, which fell 
From her lap when the wild car drave to hell. 
Heart, wilt thou go ? 
— " No, no ! 
Wise hearts are warmer so." 

CALLS ON THE HEART. 
256 



September 5. 

Born. — Tommaso Campanella, 1568. 

Cardinal Richelieu, 1585. 

Louis XIV. of France, 1638. 
Z>zV<3f. —Catharine Parr, Queen of England, 1548. 

Bishop Bonner, 1569. 

Jean Fran9ois Regnard, 1710. 

John Home, 1808. 



September 6. 

Born.—T>r. Robert Whytt, 1714. 

Z>2V^.— Jean Baptiste Colbert, 1683. 
Sir John Fielding, 1780. 
George Alexander'Stevens, 17840 
Dr, Vicesimus Knox, 1821. 



257 



September 7. 

O those days of Elizabeth ! We call them the 
days of Elizabeth, but the glory fell over the ridge, 
in illustration of the half century beyond : those 
days of Elizabeth ! Full were they of poets as the 
summer days are of birds : 

No branch on which a fine bird did not sit, 
No bird but his sweet song did shrilly sing, 
No song but did contain a lovely dit. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



September 8. 

And Spenser drooped his dreaming head 
(With languid sleep-smile you had said 
From his own verse engendered) 

On Ariosto's, till they ran 
Their curls in one. — The Italian 
Shot nimbler heat of bolder man 
From his fine lids. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

258 



September 7. 

Born. — Queen Elizabeth of England, 1535. 

Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, 1621. 

George Louis, Count de Buffon, 1707. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1709 
Died. — Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, 1644. 

Dr. John Armstrong, 1779. 

Hannah More, 1833. 



September 8. 

Born. — Ludovico Giovanni Ariosto, i 

John Leyden, 1775. 
Died. — Amy Robsart, 1560. 

Francis Quarles, 1644. 

Bishop Joseph Hall, 1656. 



259 



September 9. 

Mountain gorses, ever golden, 
Cankered not the whole year long ! 
Do ye teach us to be strong, 
Howsoever pricked and holden 
Like your thorny blooms, and so 
Trodden on by rain and snow, 
Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye 
grow ? 

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us 
From that academic chair, 
Canopied with azure air, 
That the wisest word man reaches 
Is the humblest he can speak ? 
Ye, who live on mountain peak, 
Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses 
meek ! 

LESSONS FROM THE GORSE. 



September 10. 

A woman poor or rich 
Despised or honored, is a human soul ; 
And what her soul is — that, she is herself, 
Although she should be spit upon of men, 
As is the pavement of the churches here, 
Still good enough to pray in. 

AURORA LEIGH, 



260 



September 9. 

Born. — Richard Chenevix Trench, 1807. 
Died. — James IV. of Scotland, 1513. 

Charles de St. Evremond, 1703. 

Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, 1801, 

John Brand, 1806. 



September iq. 



Born. — Mungo Park, 1771. 

Died. — William the Conqueror, 1087. 

Dr. Edward Pococke, i6qi. 

Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin, 1797. 

U§o Foscolo, 1827. 

Grace Aguilar, 1847. 



261 



September ii. 

A bird in a cage would have as good a story. 
Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleas- 
ures, have passed in my thoughts, I wrote verses 
— as I dare say many have done who never wrote 
any poems — very easily ; at eight years old and 
earlier. But, what is less common, the early fancy 
turned into a mill, and remained with me, and from 
that day to this, poetry has been a distinct object 
with me — an object to read, think, and live for. 

LETTERS TO HORNE. 



SEPTEMP3ER 12. 

The love of Pope's Homer threw me into Pope on 
one side, and into Greek on the other, and into Latin 
as a help to Greek, — and the influence of all these 
tendencies is manifest so long afterwards as in my 
" Essay on Mind," a didactic poem, written when 
I was seventeen or eighteen, and long repented of 
as worthy of all repentance. The poem is imitative 
in its form, yet is not without traces of an individual 
thinking and feeling — the bird pecks through the 
shell in it. With this it has a pertness and 
pedantry which did not even then belong to the 
character of the author, and which I regret now 
more than I do the literary defectiveness. 

LETTERS TO HORNE. 
262 



September ii. 

Born. — Ulysses Aldrovandus, 1522. 

Henri, Vicomte de Turenne, 161 1„ 

James Thomson, 1700. 
Died. — James Harrington, 1677. 

David Ricardo, 1823. 

Captain Basil Hall, 1844. 



September 12. 



Born. — Francis I. of France, 1494. 

Sir William Dugdale, 1605. 

Jean Philippe Rameau, 1683. 
Died. — Cinq Mars, 1642. 

Edward, Lord Thurlow, 1806. 

Marshal Lebrecht von BlUcher, 1819. 

Sir James Stephen, 1853. 



263 



September 13. 

For the book is in my heart, 
Lives in me, wakes in me, and dreams in me ; 
My daily bread tastes of it — and my wine 
Which has no smack of it, I pour it out ; 
It seems unnatural drinking. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



September 14. 

When we met first and loved, I did not build 
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean 
To last, a love set pendulous between 
Sorrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather thrilled, 
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild 
The onward path, and feared to overlean 
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene 
And strong since then, I think that God has willed 
A still renewable fear . . O love, O troth . . 
Lest these unclasped hands should never hold. 
This mutual kiss drop down between us both 
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. 
And love, be false ! if ht\ to keep one oath. 
Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
264 



September 13. 

Born. — Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, 1520. 
Z>?V^/. —Titus, 81. 

Michael de Montaigne, 1592. 

Philip II. of Spain, 1598. 

General James Wolfe, 1759, 



September 14. 

Born.— Henry Cornelius Agrippa, i486. 

Alexander von Humboldt, 1769. 
D/ed. — Dante Alighieri, 1321. 

Charles Rollin, 1741. 

General Louis Joseph Montcalm, 175^. 

James Fenimore Cooper, 1851. 

Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 1852. 



265 



September 15. 

He says to her what moves her most, 

He would not name his soul within 
Her hearing, — rather pays her cost 

With praises to her lips and chin. 
Man has but one soul, 'tis ordained, 

And each soul but one love, I add : 
Yet souls are damned and love's profaned. 

The nightingales will sing me mad ! 
The nightingales, the nightingales. 

BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES. 



September 16. 

Mine eyes are weary of surveying 
The fairest things, too soon decaying ; 
Mine ears are weary of receiving. 
The kindest words, — ah, past believing ! 
Weary my hope, of ebb and flow, 
Weary my pulse of times of woe, 
My trusting heart is weariest, — 
I would — I would I were at rest. 

WEARINESS. 

266 



September 15. 

Born. — Jean Sylvain Bailly, 1736. 

James Fenimore Cooper, 1789. 

James Gates Percival, 1795. 
Died. -^Sir Thomas Overbury, 1613, 

Lady Arabella Stuart, 1615. 

Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, 1712. 

General Lazarus Hoche, 1797. 

L K. Brunei, 1859. 



September i6. 

Born. — James Francis Stephens, 1792. 
Z>?>^.— Charles V. of France, 1380. 

Dean John Colet, 1519. 

James IL of England, 1701. ' 

Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, 1736. 

Louis XVIIL of France, 1824. 



267 



September 17. 

Mr. Landor's English prose writings possess most 
of the characteristics of his poetry, only they are 
more perfect of their class. His " Pericles and 
Aspasia " and '* Pentameron '^ are books for the 
world and for all time, whenever the world and 
time shall come to their senses about them ; com- 
plete in beauty of sentiment, and subtlety of criti- 
cism. His general style is highly scholastic and 
elegant ; his sentences have articulations^ if such an 
expression may be permitted, of very excellent pro- 
portions. And abounding in striking images and 
thoughts, being remarkable for making clear ground 
there, and for lifting them, like statues to pedestals, 
where they may be seen most distinctly, and strike 
with the most enduring, though often with the most 
gradual, impressions. 

LETTERS TO HORNE. 



September 18. 



Prior, a brother spirit of the French Gresset, — a 
half brother, of an inferior race, yet to be praised 
by us for one instinct obvious in him, — a blind 
stretching of the hand to a sweeter order of versifi- 
cation than was current. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 
268 



September i-]. 

Born. — Jean Antoine, Marquis de Condorcet, 1743. 

Samuel Prout, 17S3. 
Died. — Cardinal Bellarmin, i62f. 

Philip IV. of Spain, 1665. 

Walter Savage Landor, 1864. 



September i8. 

Born. — Trajan, 56. 

Bishop Gilbert Burnet, 1643. 
Died. — Domitian, 96. 

Hugo Vander Goes, 1684. 

Matthew Prior, 1721. 

William Hazlitt, 1830. 

269 



September 19. 
We are borne into life — it is sweet, it is strange. 
We lie still on the knee of a mild mystery 

Which smiles with a change ! 
But we doubt not.of changes, we know not 'of spaces, 
The Heavens seem as near as our own mother's 

face is, [see ; 

And we think we could touch- all the stars that we 
And the milk of our mother is white on our mouth : 
And, with small childish hands, we are turning 

around 
The apple of Life which another has found ; 
It is warm with our touch, not with sun of the south. 
And we count, as we turn it, the red side for four. 

A RHAPSODY OF LIFE's PROGRESS. 



September 20. 
And the winds and the waters in pastoral measures 
Go winding around us, with roll upon roll, 
Till the soul lies within a circle of pleasures 

Which hideth the soul. [horse, 

And we run with the stag, and we leap with the 
And we swim with the fish through the broad water- 
course, [hound, 
And we strike with the falcon, and hunt with the 
And the joy which is in us, flies out by a wound. • 
And we shout so aloud, '" We exult, we rejoice," 
That we lose the low moan of our brothers around, 
And we shout "so adeep down creation's profound. 
We are deaf to God's voice. 

A RHAPSODY OF LIFEf"s PROGRESS. 



September 19. 

Born. — Henry III. of France, 1551. 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1709. 
Rev. William Kirby, 1759. 
Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux, 1779. 
">zV^. —Professor John P. Nichol, 1859. 



September 20. 



Born. — Alexander the Great, b. c. 356, 

Antoninus Pius, 86. 
Died. — Lucius Crassus, b. c. 91. 

Owen Glendower, 141 5. 

Jerome Cardan, 1576. 

Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, 1643. 

William Hutton, 1815. 

William Finden, 1852. 



271 



September 21. 

Nay, if there's room for poets in this world 

A little overgrown (I think there is), 

Their sole work is to represent the age, 

Their age, not Charlemagne's — this live, throbbing 

age. 
That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires, 
And spends more passion, more heroic heat. 
Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing rooms. 
Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles. 

VURORA LEIGH. 



September 22. 

And Virgil, bard of Mantuan beech, 
Did help the shade of bay to reach 

And knit around his forehead high. 

For his gods wore less majesty 

Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly. 

A VISION OF rOETS. 



272 



September 21. 

Born. — Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, 1778. 
Died. — Edward II, of England, 1327. . 

Emperor Charles V., 1558. 

Colonel James Gardiner, 1745. 

Sir Walter 3cott, 1832. 



September 22. 

Born. — Dr. Richard Busby, 1606. 

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chester- 
field, 1694. 

John Home, 1722. 

Theodore Edward Hook, 1788. 

Theodore Winthrop, 1828. ' 
Died. — Virgil, b. c. 19. 

Francois Bernier, 1688 

Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood, 1851. 



273 



September 23. 
Dear, my soul is gray 
With poring over the long sum of ill ; 
So much for vice, so much for discontent. 
So much for the necessities of power. 
So much for the connivances of fear — 
Coherent in statistical despairs 
With such a total of distracted life, 
To see it down in figures on a page, 
Plain, silent, clear . . as God sees through the earth 
The sense of all the graves ! . . . that's terrible 
For one who is not God, and cannot right 
The wrong he looks on ! 

AURORA LEIGH. 



September 24. 
Butler's business was the business of desecration, 
the exact reverse of a poet's, and with the admission 
of all the world his business is well done. . . . His 
power over language, *' tattered and ragged," 
like Skelton's, is as wonderful as his power over 
images. And if nobody can commend the design 
of his Hudibras, which is the English counterpart of 
Don Quixote — a more objectionable servility than 
an adaptation from a serious composition, in which 
case that humorous effect would have been increased 
by the travestie, which is actually injured, and 
precisely in an inverse ratio, by the burlesque copy 
of a burlesque, — everybody must admit the force of 
the execution. the book of the poets. 

274 



September 23. 

Born. — Octavius Caesar Augustus, b. c. 63, 

Dr. Jeremy Collier, 1650. 

Jane Taylor, 1783. 

Karl Theodore Korner, 1791. 
Z>/^^.— Bishop Jewel, 1571. 

Herman Boerhaave, 1738. 

William Upcott, 1845. 

Edward Wedlake Brayley, 1854. 



September 24. 

Born.— ^\\3Xon Turner, 1768. 

Di'ed.—'Pepm, King of France, 768. 
Pope Innocent II., 1143. 
William of Wykeham, 1404, 
Samuel Butler, 1680. 



275 



September 25. 

Take music from the silent dead, whose meaning is 

completer, 
Reserve thy tears for living brows, where all such 

tears are meeter, 
And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where 

thou treadest ! 
No flowers for her ! no need of flowers — albeit 

"bring flowers," thou saidest. 

FELICIA HEMANS. 



September 26. 

What wilt thou possess or be ? 

my soul, I ask of thee. 
What of great, or what of small, 
Counted precious therewithal ? 
Be it only rare, and want it, 

1 am ready, soul, to grant it. 

THE GEEEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 



276 



September 25. 

Born. — Christian Gottlob Heyne, 1729. 

Abraham Gottlob Werner, 1750. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 1794. 
Died. — Robert Dodsley, 1764. 

Richard Pococke, 1765. 

Richard Porson, 1808. 



September 26. 

Born. — Cuthbert, Admiral Lord Collingwood, i 

James A. Hillhouse, 1789. 
Died. — Pope Clement VII., 1534. 



277 



September 27. 

In the mutest of the house, 

I will have my chamber. 
Silence at the door shall use 

Evening's light of amber ; 
Solemnizing every mood, 

Softening in degree, 
Turning sadness into good 

As I turn the key. 



THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. 



September 28. 

Bring a shadow green and still 

From the chestnut forest, 
Bring a purple from the hill. 

When the heat is sorest, 
Spread them out from wall to wall, 

Carpet-wove around. 
Whereupon the foot shall fall 

In light instead of sound. 

, THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. 

278 



September 27. 

Born. — Louis XIII. of France, 1601. 

Jacques Benigne de Bossuet, 16270 

Samuel Adams, 1723. 
Died. — Marco Girolamo Vida, 1566. 

Pope Innocent XH,, 1700, 



September 28. 



Born. — Sir William Jones, 1746. 
Died . — Jean Baptiste Massillon, 1742. 

Thomas Day, 1789. 

Granville Penn, 1844. 

Thomas Amyot, 18500 



27.9 



September 29. 

I say 
Your words — I could say other words of yours, 
For none of all your words has been more lost 
Than sweet verbena, which, being brushed against, 
Will hold you three hours after by the smell. 
In spite of long walks on the windy hills. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



September 30. 

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who had deep 
thoughts enough to accomplish ten poets of these 
degenerate days, though because of some obscurity 
in their expression you would find some twenty crit- 
ics ''full of oaths" by the pyramids that they all 
meant nothing. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS, 



280 



September 29. 

Born.— John Tillotson, 1630. 

William Julius Mickle, 1734. 

Horatio Nelson, 1758. 
Z>/V«?. — Pompey the Great, b. c. 48. 

Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden, 1560. 

Lady Rachel Russell, 1723. 



September 30. 

Born. — Euripides, b. c. 480. 

William Hutton, 1723. 

Jacques Neckar, 1734. 
D/ed. — Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1628. 

John Dolland, 1761. 

George Whitefield. 1770. 

Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, 1811. 

Auguste Comte, 1857. 



281 



October i. 

Grave Corneille, 
The orator of rhymes, whose wail 
Scarce shook his purple. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

The most utter Vv^retch 
Will choose his postures when he comes to die, 
However in the presence of a queen. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



October 2. 

It is wonderful to look back and listen. Blind 
Homer spoke this Greek after blind Demodocus, 
with a quenchless light about his brows, which he 
felt through his blindness. Pindar rolled his chariots 
in it, prolonging the clamor of the games. Sappho's 
heart beat through it, and heaved up the world's, 
^schylus strained it to the stature of his high 
thoughts, Plato crowned it with his divine perad- 
ventures. Aristophanes made it drunk with the 
wine of his fantastic merriment. The later Plato- 
nists wove their souls away in it, out of sight of other 
souls. The first Christians heard in it God's new 
revelation, and confessed their Christ in it from the 
suppliant's knee, and fervently from the bishop's 
throne. To all times, and their transitions, the 
language lent itself. 

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 

282 



October i. 

Born. — Henry III, of England, 1207. 

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 1678. 
Z>/V^.— Pierre Corneille, 1684. 



October 2. 



Born. — Richard HI. of England, 1452. 

Cardinal Charles Borromeo, 1538. 

Chevalier d'Eon, 1728. 

Joseph Ritson, 1752. 
^^r;?.— Aristotle, b. c 322. 

Major Andre, 1780. 

William Ellery Channing, 1842. 



283 



October 3. 

I hear a sound of life— bf life like ours — 
Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech, 
Of little plaintive voices innocent, 
Of life in separate courses flowing out 
Like our four rivers to some outward main. 
I hear life — life ! 

A DRAMA OF EXILE, 



October 4. 

And, seeing we had books among the hills, 
Strong words of counseling souls, confederate 
With vocal pines and waters — out of books 
He taught me all the ignorance of men, 
And how God laughs in heaven when any man 
Says "Here I'm learned ; this, I understand ; 
In that, I am never caught at fault or doubt." 
He sent the schools to school, demonstrating 
A fool will pass for such through one mistake, 
While a philosopher will pass for such, 
Through said mistakes being ventured in the gross 
And heaped up to a system. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
284 



October 3. 

Born. — Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, 1566= 
Giovanni Baptista Beccaria, 1716. 
George Bancroft, 1806. 

Died. — Robert Barclay, 1690, 



October 4. 

Born.— Ca.rdina.\ Robert Bellarmin, 15420 

Richard Cromwell, 1626. 

Edmund Malone, 1741. 
'Z>/^^.— Edwin the Great, 633. 

St. Francis, 1226. 

Henry Carey, 1743. 

John Vandenhoff, 1861. 



285 



October 5. 

Cloud-walls of the mornings grey 

Faced with amber column, 
Crowned with crimson cupola 

P>om a sunset solemn. 
May-mists, for the casements, fetch, 

Pale and glimmering, 
With a sunbeam hid in each, 

And a smell of spring. 

THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. 



October 6. 

Tired out we are, my heart and I, 
Suppose the world brought diadems 
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems 

Of powers and pleasures ? Let it try. 
We scarcely care to look at even 
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven, 

We feel so tired, my heart and I. 

Yet who complains ? My heart and I ? 
In this abundant earth no doubt 
Is little room for things worn out : 

Disdain them, break them, throw them by ! 
And if before the days grew rough 
We once were loved, used, — well enough, 

T think, weVe fared, my heart and I, 

MY HEART AND I. 
286 



October 5. 

Born.— Jomiihan Edwards, 1703. 

Horace Walpole, 1717. 

William Wilkie, 1721. 
Dzed.—Fhlhp the Bold, 1285. 

Augustus III., King- of Poland, 17630 

Charles, Marquis Cornwallis, 1805. 

Bernard, Comte de Lacepede, 1825. 



October 6. 

Born. — Edward V. of England, 1470. 

Madame Campan, 1752. 

Louis Philippe, 1773. 

Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, 1821, 
Z>/^^.— Charles the Bald, 877. 

Charles X., King of France, 1836. 



287 



October 7. 

As to the "Raven" tell me what you shall say about 
it. There is certainly a power, but it does not appear 
to me the natural expression of a sane intellect in 
whatever mood ; and I think that this should be 
specified in the title of the poem. There is a fan- 
tasticalness about the '* Sir, or Madame," and things 
of the sort, which is ludicrous, unless there is a, 
specified insanity to justify the straws. Probably he 
— the author — intended it to be read in the poem, 
and he ought to have intended it. The rhythm acts 
excellently upon the imagination, and the "never- 
more " has a solemn chime with it. 

LETTERS TO HORNE. 



October 8. 



" Now tell us what is Italy?" men ask, 
And others answer "Virgil, Cicero, 

Catullus, Csesar." What beside ? to task 
The memory closer — " Why, Boccaccio, 

Dante, Petrarca," — and if still the flask 
Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow, — 

"Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,'' — all 
Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged 
■ again 

The paints with fire of souls electrical. 
Or broke up heaven for music. What more then ? 

Why, then, no more ? 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 

288 . 



October 7- 

Born> — William Laud, 1573. 

Charles Abbott, Lord Tenterden, 1762. 
Died. —George Gascoigne, 1577. 

Giovanni Battista Guarini, 1612. 

Nicholas Heinsius, 1687. 

Dr. John George Zimmerman, 1795. 

Dr. Thomas Reid, 1796. 

Edgar Allen Poe, 1849. 



October 8. 

Born. — Dr. John Hoadly, 1711. 
Died. — Nicolo di Rienzi, 1354. 

Sir Richard Blackmore, 1729. 

Vittorio Alfieri, 1803. 

Charles Fourier, 1837. 

Johann H. Dannecker, 1841. 



289 



October 9. 

We fair fine ladies, who park out our lives 

From common sheep-paths, cannot help the crows 

From flying over — we're as natural still 

As Blowsalinda. Drape us perfectly 

In Lyons velvet — we are not, for that, 

Lay-figures, like you ! we have hearts within 

Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts, 

As ready for distracted ends and acts 

As any distressed sempstress of them all 

That Romney groans and toils for. We catch love, 

And other fevers, in the vulgar way. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



October 10. 

Sparrows five 
For just two farthings, and God cares for each. 
If God is not too great for little cares, 
Is any creature, because gone to God ? 
I've seen some of the audacious, nowise mad, 
Who have thought or dreamed, declared and testi- 
fied 
They've heard the Dead a-ticking like a clock 
Which strikes the hours of the eternities, 
Beside them, with their natural ears, and known 
That human spirits feel the human way, 
And hate the unreasoning awe which waves them off 
From possible communion. It may be. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
290 



October 9. 

Born. — Miguel de Cervantes de Saavedra, 1547. 

Jacob Augustus De Thou (Thuanas), 1553. 
Died. — Pope Clement II., 1047. 

Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, 
1709. 



October io. 

Born. — Henry Cavendish. 1 731. 

Benjamin West, 1738. 

Rev. Theobald Mathew, 1790. 
Died. — Dr. John Blow, 1708. 

Dr. William Wilkie, 1772. 

Henry Brooke, 1783. 

Varnhagen von Ense, 1838, 



291 



October ii. 

It is well to mark Wyatt as a leader in the art of 
didactic poetic composition, under the epistolary 
form, *' sternly milde " (as Surrey said of his counte- 
nance), in the leaning toward satire. It is very well to 
mark many of his songs d.s of exceeding beauty, and 
as preserving clear their touching simplicity from 
that of over-curious conceits which infest his writ- 
ings generally. That was the plague of Italian 
education transmitted by contagion, together with 
better things—together with the love of love-lore, 
and the sonnet structure, the summer bower for one 
fair thought, delighted in and naturalized in Eng- 
land by Wyatt and Surrey. 



THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 
-♦>« 



October 12. 

What to those who understand 
Are to-day's enjoyments narrow. 
Which to-morrow go again, 
Which are shared with evil men. 
And of which no man in his dying 
Taketh aught for softer lying ? 

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 



292 



October n. 

Born. — Dr. Samuel Clarke, 1675. 

James Barry, 1741. 
Died. — Ulrich Zwingli, 1531. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1542. 

Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, 1753. 



October 12. 



Born. — Edward VI. of England, 1537. 

Hugh Miller, 1802. 
Died. — Pope Honorius I., 638. 

Maximilian II., Emperor of Germany, 1576. 

Robert Stephenson, 1859. 



293 



October 13. 

"Wilt have measureless delights 
Of gold-roofed palaces, and sights 
From pictured or from sculptured art, 
With motion near their life ; and splendor 
Of bas-relief, with tracery tender, 
And varied and contrasted hues? 
Wilt thou have, as nobles use, 
Broidered robes to flow about thee ? 
Jeweled fingers ? Need we doubt thee ? 
Gauds for which the wise will flout thee ? 
I most, who, of all beauty, know. 
It must be inward, to be so ! 

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 



October 14. 

Oh, that love for story-telling ! It may be foolish, 
to be sure ; it leads into waste of time, to be sure ; 
still, how pleasant it is ! How full of enchantment 
and dreamtime gladnesses ? What a pleasant accom- 
paniment to one's lonely coffee cup in the morning 
or evening, to hold a little volume in the left hand, 
and read softly along how Lindoro saw Monimia 
over the hedge, and what he said to her ! . , . 
Did we not divine it would end so — albeit ourselves 
and Monimia were weeping at the end of the sec- 
ond volume ? Even to the end of the third, when 
Lindoro was sworn at for a traitor by everybody in 
the book, may it not be testified gloriously of us 
that we saw through him. . ? letters to horne. 
294 



OCTOBER 13. 

Born.—Soph'm, Electress of Hanover, 1630. 

Maurice, Marshal Saxe, 1696. 
£>/ed. — Theodore Beza, 1605. 

Joachim Murat, 1815. 

Antonio Canova, 1822. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, 1845. 



October 14. 

Born.— James 11. of England, 1633- 

William Penn, 1644. 

Pierre Gassendi, 1655. 
Died. — Harold, 1066. 

Paul Scarron, 1660. 

Prince Gregory Alexander Potemkin^ 1791. 



295 



October 15. 

Lucretius — nobler than his mood ; 

Who dropped his plummet down the broad 

Deep universe, and said '* No God," 

Finding no bottom ; he denied 
Divinely the Divine, and died 
Chief poet on the Tiber side. 

By grace of God ! his face is stern, 
As one compelled, in spite of scorn, 
To teach a^ruth he could not learn. 

A VISION OF POETS. 



October 16. 

Build the entrance high and proud, 

Darkening and then brightening, 
Of a riven thunder-cloud, 

Veined by the lightning. 
Use one w^ith an iris-stain 

For the door w^ithin : 
Turning to a sound like rain 

As WQ enter in. 

THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. 
296 



October 15. 

Born.—KWzxi Ramsay, 1686. 

Alexander Fraser Tytler, 1747, 

Count Stolbery, 1747. 
Died. — Lucretius, b. c. 55. 

Michael Kelly, 1826. 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 1838, 

Rev. John Foster, 1843. 



October i6. 

Born.— Dr. Albert von Haller, 1708. 
Died. — Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, 16790 

Robert Ferguson, 1774. 

Marie Antoinette, 1793. 

Dr. John Hunter, 1793. 

Henry Martin, 1812. 

Thaddeus Kosciuszko, 1817. 



297 



October 17. 

Sidney, true knight and fantastic poet, whose soul 
did too curiously enquire the fashion of the beauti- 
ful — the fashion rather than the secret, — but left us 
one line the completest *' Ars Poetica " extant, — and 
write : 

'' Foole, sayde my Muse to mee, looke in thine heart, and 
write," 

thy name be famous in all England and Arcadia ! 

THE J300K OF THE POETS. 



October 18. 



I'm plain at speech, direct in purpose ; when 
I speak, you'll take the meaning as it is. 
And not allow for puckerings in the silks 
By clever stitches. I'm a woman, sir, 
And use the woman's figures naturally, 
As you the male license. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



298 



October 17. 

Born. — Augustus III. of Poland, 1696. 

John Wilkes, 1727. 

William Scott, Baron Stowell, 174S0 
Died.—SxT Philip Sidney, 1686. 

Ninon de LenclQS, 1705. 

Frederick Chopin, 1849. 



October i8. 

Born.—M.2ii\.hew Henry, 1662. 

Prince Eugene, 1663. 

Richard Nash, 1764. 
Died. — John Ziska, 1424. 

Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, 
1744. 

Rdnd Antoine de Reaumur, 1757. 



299 



October 19. 

That great injustice has been done to Mr. Leigh 
Hunt, I am well aware, and that what was repro- 
bated in him passed free in others, I am well aware. 
But one sort of injustice is not to be corrected by 
another, and on the poiftt of what his views of re- 
ligious truth and moral virtue used to be, I cannot 
agree with you that he has been " misrepresented," 
and I am of the opinion that you confront the of- 
fensive injustice of the world with the defensive in- 
justice of your individual friendship. For myself, 
I will say that, out of the circle of Mr. Leigh Hunt's 
immediate friends, there can be no one who regards 
him with more respect and admiration than I do. 
Yet I must write so. letters to horne. 



October 20. 

No one sings. 
Descending Sinai ; on Parnassus mount 
You take a mule to climb and not a muse. 
Except in fable and figure ; forests chant 
Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. 
But sit in London at the day's decline, 
And view the city perish in the mist 
Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Red Sea, 
The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host. 
Sucked down and choked in silence — then surprised, 
By a sudden sense of vision and of tune. 
You feel as conquerors though you did not fight. 
And you and Israel's other singing-girls. 
Ay, Miriam with them, sing the song you choose. 

AURORA LEIGH, 
300 



October 19. 

Born. — Sir Thomas Browne, 1605. 

James Gronovius, 1645. 

John Adams, 1735. 

Leigh Hunt, 1784. 
Died. — Sir Thomas Browne, 1682. 

Jonathan Swift, 1745. 

Henry Kirke White, 1806. 

Francis Joseph Talma, 1826. 



October 20. 

Born. — Sir Christopher Wren, 1632. 

Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, 
1784. 
Died. — Charles VI. of France, 1422. 

Archibald Pitcairn, 1713. 

Charles VI. of Germany, 1740. 

Philip Astley, 1814. 



301 



October 21. 

We do not, we hope it of ourselves, undervalue 
Waller, There is a certain grace *' beyond the reach 
of art," or rather beyond the distinctive reach of his 
ideas of art, to which, we opine, if he had not been a 
courtier and a renegade, the Lady Dorothea might 
have bent her courtly head unabashed, even as the 
Penshurst beeches. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



October 22. 



How many are there from Psellus to Bayle bound 
hand and foot intellectually with the rolls of their 
own papyrus — men whose erudition has grown 
stronger than their own souls ! How many whom 
we would gladly see washed in the clean waters of 
a little ignorance, and take our part in their refresh- 
ment ! Not that knowledge is bad, but that wisdom 
is better, — and that it is betterand wiser in the sight 
of the angels of knowledge to think out one true 
thought with a thrush's song, and a green light for 
all lexion (or to think it without the light and 
without the song — ^because truth is beautiful, where 
they are not seen or heard) — than to mummy our 
benumbed souls with the circumvolutions of twenty 
thousand books. 

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN POETS. 



October 21. 

Born. — George Colman (the Younger), 1762. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772. 

George Combe, 1788. 
Z'/Vrt'. —Edward Waller, 1687. 

Tobias Smollett, 1771. 

Samuel Foote, 1777. 

Horatio, Lord Nelson, 1805. 

John Philpot Curran, 1817. 



October 22. 



Born, — John Reinhold Foster, 1729. 

Sir Philip Francis, 1740. 
Z>/V<^. —Charles Mart el. 741 

Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1707. 

William Wollaston, 1724. 

Dr Samuel Arnold, 1802. 

Sir William Molesworth, 1855. 



303 



October 23, 

Must I work in vain, 
Without the approbation of a man ? 
It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself, 
That approbation of the general race, 
Presents a poor end (though the arrow speed, 
Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white). 
And the highest fame was never reached except 
By what was aimed above it. Art for art, 
And good for God Himself, the essential Good ! 
We'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect, 
Although our woman-hands should shake and fail ; 
And if we fail . . But must we ?— 

AURORA LEIGH. 



October 24. 

My Father ! — thou hast knowledge, only thou. 

How dreary 'tis for women to sit still 

On winter nights by solitary fires. 

And hear the nations praising them far off, 

Too far ! ay, praising our quick sense of love. 

Our very heart of passionate womanhood. 

Which could not beat so in the verse without 

Being present also in the unkissed lips. 

And eyes undried because there's none to ask 

The reason they grow moist. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



October 23. 

Born. — Dr. John Jortin, 1698. 

Marshal Andoche Junot, 
Francis Jeffrey, 1773. 

Died. — William Prynne, i66g. 
Anne Oldfield, 1730. 



October 24. 

Born. — Sir James Mackintosh, 17650 
Died, — Hugo Capet, 997. 

Jane Seymour, 1537. 

Tycho Brahe, 1601. 

Daniel Webster, 1852. . 



305 



October 25. 

But it is in Chaucer we touch the true height, and 
look abroad into the kingdoms and glories of our 
poetical literature. ... His verses are open and 
delicate, like a young child's, — his sensibilities ca- 
paciousof supersensual relations, likean experienced 
thinker's. Child-like, too, his tears and smiles lie 
at the edge of his eyes, and he is one proof more 
among the many that the deepest pathos and the 
quickest gaieties hide together in the same nature. 
He is too wakeful and curious to lose the stirring of 
a leaf, yet not too wide awake to see visions of green 
and white ladies between the branches ; and a fair 
house of fame and a noble court of love are built 
and holden in the winking of his eyelash. 

THE book: of the poets. 

— «-^* 

October 26. 

Here's an age, 
That makes its own vocation ! here, we have stepped 
Across the bounds of time ! here's nought to see, 
But just the rich man and just Lazarus, 
And both in torments ; v.ith a mediate gulf, 
Though not a hint of Abraham's bosom. Who, 
Being man and human, can stand calmly by 
And view these things, and never tease his soul 
For some great cure ? No physic for this grief. 
In all the earth and heavens too. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
306 



October 25. 

Born. — Dr. James^Beattie, 1735. 

George Stanley Faber, 17730 
Died. — Demosthenes, b. c. 322. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1400. 

August Calmet, 1657. 

William Hogarth, 1764. 



October '26. 



Born. — Charles Fran9ois Dupuis, 1742, 
George James Danton, 1759. 
Charles Sprague, 1791. 

Died. — Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1723. 
Dr. Philip Doddridge, 1751. 



307 



October 27. 

Rise up, teacher ! here's 
A crowd to make a nation !— best begin 

By making each a man, till all the peers 
Of earth's true patriots and pure martyrs in 

Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doors 
Which Peter's heirs kept locked so overdose 

They only let the mice across the floors, 
While every churchman dangles as he goes 

The great key at his girdle, and abhors 
In Christ's name, meekly. Open wide the house — 

Concede the entrance with Christ's liberal mind, 

And set the tables with His wine and bread. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



October 28. 



Shall fixed chimeras unfixed reason shock ? 
And if Locke err, must thousands err with Locke ? 
Men, claim your charter, spurn th* unjust control. 
And shake the bondage from the free-born soul ! 
Go walk the porticoes, and teach your youth 
All names are bubbles but the name of Truth ! 
If fools, by chance, attend to wisdom's rules, 
'Tis no dishonor to be right with fools. 
If human faults to Plato's page belong. 
Not ev'n with Plato willingly go wrong. 

ESSAY ON MIND. 



October 27. 

Born. — Hester Chapone, 1727. 

Captain James Cook, 1728. 

Dr. Andrew" Combe, 1797. 
Died. — Marcus Junius Brutus, b. c. 42. 

Michael Servetus, 15S3. 

Madame Ada Pfeiffer, 1858. 



October 28. 

Born. — Desiderius Erasmus, 1467. 

Dr. Nicholas Brady, 1659. 

Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, 1726. 

Marshal Emanuel Grouchy, 1766. 
Died. — Alfred the Great, {circa) goo. 

John Wallis, 1703. 

John Locke, 1704. 

Charlotte Smith, 1806. 



309 



October 29. 

And Raleigh, tender and strong, of voice sweev 
enough to answer that '* Passionate Shepherd," yet 
trumpet-shrill to speak the ** Soul's Errand" 
thrilling the depths of our own ! having honor and 
suffering as became a poet, from the foot of the 
Lady of England light upon his cloak, to the cloak 
of the executioner wrapping redly his breathless 
corpse. THE BOOK of the poets. 

And another word of Shirley, an inferior writer, 
though touched, to our fancy, with something of a 
finer ray, and closing in worthy purple, the proces- 
sion of the Elizabethan men. Shirley is the last 
dramatist. the book of the poets. 



October 30. 

I read books bad and good — some bad and good 
At once : good aims not always make good books ; 
Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils 
In digging vineyards, even : books, that prove 
God's being so definitely, that man's doubt 
Grows self-defined the other side the line, 
Made atheist by suggestion ; moral books, 
Exasperating to license ; genial books. 
Discounting from the human dignity ; 
And merry books, which set you weeping when 
The sun shines — ay, and melancholy books. 
Which make you laugh that any one should weep 
In this disjointed life, for one wrong more. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



October 29. 

Born. — Edmund Halley, 1656. 

James Boswell, 1740. 

William Hayley, 1745. 

John Keats, 1796. 
Died.—S'w Walter Raleigh, 1618. 

James Shirley, 1666. 

George Mori and, 1806. 

Allan Cunningham, 1842. 



October 30. 

Born. — Jacques Amyot, 1513, 

George II. of England, 1683. 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751. 

Died. — Antinous, 130. 

Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 18 
Rev. Charles Maiurin, 1824. 



311 



October 31. 

The house is waste to-day — 
The leaf has dropt from the spray, 
The thorn, prickt through to the song. 
If summer doeth no wrong 

The winter will, they say. 
Sing, Heart ! what heart replies ? 
In vain we were calm and wise, 
If the tears unkissed stand in our eyes. 
Heart, wilt thou go? 
— ^'Ah, no! 
'* Grieved hearts must break even so." 

CALLS ON THE HEART. 




312 



October 31. 

Born. — John Evelyn, 1620- 

Christopher Anstey, 1724. 
Died. — John Palaeologus, 1448. 

John Bradshaw, 1659. 

Victor Amadeus, T732. 

Jacques Pierre Brissot, 1793. 




313 



November i. 

The rural cup-boy came 

And poured Jove's nectar out with shining eyes, 
Whde Bacchus, for the others, did as much, 

And Vulcan spread the meal ; and all the hours 

Made all things purple with a sprinkle of flowers, 
Of roses chiefly, not to say the touch 

Of their sweet fingers ; and the Graces glided 
Their balm around, and the Muses, through the air 

Struck out clear voices, which were still divided 
By that divinest song Apollo there 

Intoned to his lute ; while Aphrodite fair 
Did float her beauty along the tune, and play 

The notes right with her feet. 

PARAPHRASE ON APULEIUS. 



November 2. 

What do we give to our beloved ? 

A little faith all undisproved, 

A little dust to overweep. 

And bitter memories to make 

The whole earth blasted for our sak-e. 

" He giveth His beloved sleep." 

O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
O delved gold, the wailers' heap ! 
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall \ 
God strikes a silence through you all. 
And '' giveth His beloved sleep." 

THE SLEEP. 



November i. 

Born. — Benvenuto Cellini, 1500. 

Sir Matthew Hale, 1609. 

Nicholas Boileau, 1636. 

Lydia Huntley Sigourney, 1791. 
Died.—T>r. John Radcliffe, 1714. 

Humphrey Prideaux, 1724- 

Louisa de Querouaille. 1734. 

Edward Shuter, 1776. 

Lord George Gordon, 1793, 



November 2. 



Born.— M-diVie Antoinette, 1755. 

General Joseph Wenzel Radetzsky, 1766. 
Died. — Dr. Richard Hooker, 1600. 

Sophia Dorothea, 1726. 

Alexander Menzikoff, 1729. 

Sir Samuel Romilly, i8i8, 

Esaias Tegner, 1846. 



315 



November 3. 

I said that two or three might choose 

Their dwelling near mine own : 
Those who would change man's voice and use, 

For Nature's way and tone — 
Man's veering heart and careless eyes, 
For Nature's steadfast sympathies. 

Ourselves to meet her faithfulness 

Shall play a faithful part : 
Her beautiful shall ne'er address 

The monstrous at our heart ; 
Her musical shall ever touch 
Something within us also such. 

AN ISLAND. 

November 4. 

Things nameless ! which, in passing so, 

Do stroke us with a subtle grace. 
We say, *' Who passes ? " — they are dumb. 
We cannot see them go or come. 
Their touches fall soft — cold — as snow 

Upon a blind man's face. 

Yet, touching, so, they draw above 

Our common thoughts to Heaven's unknown ; 
Our daily joy and pain, advance 
To a divine significance — 
Our human love — O mortal love. 

That light is not its own ! 

HUMAN life's MYSTERY. 
316 



November 3. 

Born. — Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 39. 

William Cullen Bry^ant, 1794. 
Died. —Pope Leo the Great, 461. 

Bishop Robert Lowth, 1787. 

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 1847. 



November 4. 



Born. — James Montgomery, 1771, 
Died. — John Benbow, 1702. 

Charles Churchill, 1765. 

Paul Delaroche, 1856, 



317 



November 5. 

After years of love, 
Or what is called so' — when a woman frets 
And fools upon one string of a man's name, 
And fingers it forever till it breaks — 
He may perhaps do for her such thing, 
And she accept it without detriment 
Although she would not love him any more. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



November 6. 

Men define a man, 
The creature who stands front-ward to the stars. 
The creature who looks inward to himself, 
The tool-wright, laughing creature. 'Tis enough : 
We'll say instead, the inconsequent creature, man — 
For that's his specialty. What creature else 
Conceives the circle, and then walks the square ? 
Loves things proved bad, and leaves a thing proved 
good ? 

AURORA LEIGH. 

318 



November 7. 

Born^^WiUiam Stukeley, 1687. 

Leopold Frederick, Count Stolberg, 1750, 
Died. — Cains Cilnius Maecenas, b. c. 8. 

Sir Martin Frobisher, 1594. 

John Kyrle, 1724. 

Jean Andre Deluc, 1817. 



November 8. 



Born. — Edward Pococke, 1604. 

Captain John Byron, 1723. 
Z>/V^.— Duns Scotus, 1308. 

Cardinal Ximencs, 1517. 

John Milton, 1674. 

Madam Roland, 1793. 

Thomas Bewick, 1828. 



321 



November 9. 

How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a 

stone, 
And feel mine own bethrothed go by — alas ! no 

more mine own — 
Go leading by in wedding pomp some lovely lady 

brave, 
With cheeks that blushed as red as rose, while mine 

were white in grave? 

THE LAV OF THE BROWN KOI-ARV. 



I 



November 10. 

Let us turn for refreshment to Goldsmith — that 
amiable genius, upon whose diadem we feel our 
hands laid ever and anon in familiar love, — to Gold- 
smith, half emerged from ** the system," hii fore- 
head touched with the red ray of the morning : a 
cordial singer. Even Johnson, the ponderous critic 
of the system, who would hang a dog if he read 
**Lycidas" twice, who wrote the "Lives of the 
Poets " and left out the Poets, even he loved Gold- 
smith, and Johnson Avas Dryden's critical bear, a 
rough bear, and with points of noble beardom. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



November 9. 

Born. — Mark Akenside, 1721. 

William Sotheby, 1757. 
Died. — William Camden, 1623. 

Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon, 1677, 

Paul Sandly, 1809. 



November io. 

Born. — Mohammed, 570. 

Martin Luther, 148 5 

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, 1567, 

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728. 

Frederick Schiller, 1759. 
Died.—Vo^^ Paul III., 1549. 

Gideon Algernon Mantell, 1852, 

Isadore Geoff roy St. Hilaire, 1861. 



323 



NOVExMBER II. 

But this is over, I do thank God, and we are on the 
point of carrying back our treasure with us to 
Florence to-morrow, quite recovered, if a little 
thinner and weaker, and the you^g voice as merry 
as ever. You are aware that that child I am more 
proud of than twenty " Auroras," even after Leigh 
Hunt has praised them. He is eight years old, and 
has never been ''''crammed,'^ but reads English^ 
Italian, French, German, and plays the piano — then 
is the sweetest child ! sweeter than he looks. When 
he was ill, he said to me, "Youxpet ! Don't be 
unhappy about me ; think it's a boy in the street, 
and be a little sorry, but not unhappy." Who could 
not be unhappy, I wonder ? — letter to hunt. 



November 12. 



Speak not ! he is consecrated. 

Breathe no breath across his eyes. 
Lifted up and separated 

On the hand of God he lies, [sanctities. 
In a sweetness beyond touching — held in cloistral 

Could ye bless him — father — mother. 

Bless the dimple in his cheek ? 
Dare ye look at one another. 
And the benediction speak ? 
Would ye not break out in weeping and confess 
yourselves too weak? 

A CHILD ASLEEP. 



November n. 

Born.— Jean Albert Fabricius, 1668, 

Mane Xavier Eichat, 1771. 

Dr. John Abercrombie, 1781. 
Z>?>^.— Canute, 1035. 

Thomas, Lord Fairfax, 1671. 

Jean Sylvain Bailly, 1793. 



November 12. 

Born. — Richard Baxter, 1615. 

Admiral Edward Vernon, 

Amelia Opie, 1769. 
Died. — Sir John Hawkins, 1595. 

William Hayley, 1820. 

Charles Kemble, 1854. 



325 



November 13. 

And I think of those long mornings 

Which my thought goes far to seek, 
When, betwixt the folio's turnings, 

Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek. 
Past the pane the mountain spreading, 

Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise. 
While a girlish voice was reading, 

Somewhat low, for ats and ots. 

WINE OF CYPRUS. 



November 14. 

Now, do it ; bring your statue — you have room ! 

He'll see it even by the starlight here ; 

And if 'tis e'er so little like the god 

Who looks out from the marble silently 

Along the track of his own shining dart 

Through the dusk of ages — there's no need to speak *, 

The universe shall henceforth speak for you. 

And witness, ^' She who did this thing was born- 

To do it — claims her license in her work." 

— And so with more works. W^hoso. cures the 

plague, 
Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech : 
Who rights a land's finances, is excused 
For touching coppers, though her hands be white — 
But we, jve talk ! 

^ AURORA LEIGH. 

326 



November 13. 

Born.Sl. Augustine, 354. 

Pelagius, 354. 
Died. — Justinian, 565. 

William Etty, 1849. 

Sir John Forbes, 1861. 



November 14. 



^<?r«.— Benjamin Hoadley, 1676. 

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager, 1779. 

Sir Charles Lyell, 1797. 
Z>/^^- —Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, 1716. 

George Wilhelm Frederick Heyne, 1831. 

Dr. John Abercrombie, 1844. 



327 



November 15. 

O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the 

deathless singing ! 
O Christians, at your cross of hope, a hopeless 

hand was clinging ! 
O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths 

beguiling. 
Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died 

while ye were smiling ^ 

cowper's grave. 



November 16. 



O we live, O we live — 
And this life that we achieve 
Is a loud thing and a bold, 
Which with pulses manifold 
Strikes the heart out full and fain — 
Active doer, noble liver, 

Strong to struggle, sure to conquer. 
Though the vessel's prow will quiver 

At the lifting of the anchor : 
Yet do we strive in vain ? 

A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



November 15. 

Born. — Andrew Marvell, 1620. 

William Pitt, 1708. 

William Cowper, 1731. 

Sir William Herschel, 1738. 

Jean Casper Lavater, 1741. 

Richard Henry Dana, 1787. 
Died. — Martin Magnus, 1280. 

John Kepler, 1630. 

Henry Ireton, 1651. 

Christopher Gluck, 1787.. 

Johanna Kinkel, 1850. 



November i6. 

^<?r«.— Fabric ius, b. c, 43. 

Jean la Rond d'Alerribert, 1717 
Z>/V<^.— Henry III. of England, 1272. 

Perkin Warbeck, 1499. 

James Ferguson, 1776. 

Jean Lambert Tallien, 1820. 



329 



November 17. 

O we live, O we live — 
And this life that we reprieve, 
Is a low thing and a light, 
Which is jested out of sight, 
And made worthy of disdain ! 
Strike with bold electric laughter 

The high tops of things divine — 
Turn thy head, my brother, after, 

Lest thy tears fall in my- wine ? — 
For is all laughed in vain ? 



A DRAMA OF EXILE. 



November 18. 



Sleep, little babe, on my knee. 

Sleep, for midnight is chill, 
And the moon has died out in the tree, 

And the great human world goeth ill. 
Sleep, for the wicked agree : 

Sleep, let them do as they will. 
Sleep. 
Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast 

The last drop of milk that was good ; 
And now, in a dream, suck the rest. 

Lest the real should trouble thy blood. 
Suck, little lips dispossessed. 

As we kiss in the air whom we would. 
Sleep. 

VOID IN LAW. 



November 17. 

Born. — Vespasian, 9. 

Louis XVIII. , 1755. 

Marshal Macdonald, 1765, 
Died. — Sir John Mandeville, 1372. 

John Picus, 1494. 

Alaine Rene le Sagfe, 1747. 

Empress Catharine of Russia, 1796. 

Thomas, Lord Erskine, 1823. 



November i8. 

Born. — Pierre Bayle, 1647. 

Sir David Wilkie, 1785. 
Died. — Cardinal Reginald Pole, 1550. 

Jacob Bohme, 1624. 

Thomas Frognall Dibdin, 1847. 

Charles Heath, 1848. 

Professor Edward Forbes, 1854. 

Frank Stone, 1859. 



331 



November 19. 

The past rolls forward on the sun 
And makes all night. O dreams begun, 
Not to be ended ! Ended bliss, 
And life that will not end in jthis ! 
My days go on, my days go on. 



DE PROFUNDIS. 



November 20. 

Beauty in the mind 
Leaves the heart cold — and love-refined 
Ambitions make the world unkind. 

The boor who ploughs the daisy down, 
The chief, whose mortgage of renown 
Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown — 

Both these are happier, more approved 
Than poets ! — why should I be moved 
In saying . . . both are more beloved ? 

A VISION OF POETS. 

332 



NOVExMBER 19. 

Born. — Charles I. ot England, 1600. 

Aluert Thorwaldsen, 1770. 
Died, — Nicholas Poussin, 1665. 

Abraham John Valpy, 1857. 



November 20. 



Born. — Jean Fran9ois de la Harpe, 1739. 

Thomas Chatterton, 1752. 

Louis Alexandre Berthier, 1753. 
Died. — Sir Christopher Hatton, 1591. 

Cardinal de Polignac, 1741. 



333 



November 21. 
" This is the' way," laughed the great god Pan, 

(Laughed while he sat by the river,) 
** The only way, since gods began 
To make sweet music, they could succeed." 
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 

He blew in power by the river. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 

Piercing sweet by the river ! 
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 
The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 

Came back to dream on the river. 

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. 



November 22. 
Our troop is far behind, 

The woodland calm is new ; 
Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs, 

Tread deep the shadows through ; 
And in my mind, some blessing kind 

Is dropping with the dew. 

The woodland calm is pure — 

I cannot choose but have 
A thought from these o* the beechen-trees 

Which in our England wave. 
And of the little finches fine 
Which sang there while in Palestitie 

The warrior hilt we drave. 

THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGl?. 

334 



November 21. 

Born. — Admiral Lord Edmund Lyons, 1790. 
Died. — Marcus Lucinius Crassus, b. c. 53, 

Sir Thomas Gresliam, 1579. 

Thomas Shadwell, 1692. 

Henry Purcell, 1695. 

James Hogg, 1835. 

Agnes Berry, 1852, 



November 22. 

Born. — Professor Dugald Stewart, 1753. 
Died. — Robert, Lord Clive, 1774. 

Fran9ois le Vaillant, 1824. 

Sir Henry Havelock, 1857. 

Pierre Lacordaire, 1861, 



335 



November 23. 

An island full of hills and dells, 

All rumpled and uneven 
With green recesses, sudden swells, 

And odorous valleys driven 
So deep and straight, that always there 
The wind is cradled to soft air. 

Hills running up to heaven for light 
Through woods that half-way ran : 

As if the wild earth mimicked right 
The wilder heart of man. 

Only it shall be greener far 

And gladder than hearts ever are. 

AN ISLAND. 



November 24. 

Is ever a lament begun 
By any mourner under sun, 
Which, ere it endeth, suits but one? 

THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE. 



336 



November 23. 

Born, — Dr. John Wallis, 1616. 

Dr. Thomas Birch, 1705. 
Died. —Thomas Tall is, 1585. 

Richard Hakluyt, 1616. 

Antoine Fran9ois Prevot, 1763, 

Sir John Barrow, 1848. 



November 24. 

Born. — Lawrence Sterne, 1.713. 

Grace Darling, 1815. 
Died. — John Knox, 1572. 

William Sancroft, 1693. 

Dr. Robert Henry, 1790, 

George Croly, i860. 



337 



November 25. 

And bold Da Vega, — who breathed quick 
Verse after verse, till death's old trick 
Put a pause to life and rhetoric. 

A VISION OF POETS. 

We poets always have uneasy hearts ; 

Because our hearts, large-rounded as the globe, 

Can turn but one side to the sun at once. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



November 26. 



And often by the joy without, 

And in us, overcome, 
We through our musing shall let float 

Such poems, — sitting dumb, — 
As Pindar might have writ, if he 
Had tended sheep in Arcady ; 

Or T^schylus — the pleasant fields 

He died in, longer knowing : 
Or Homer, had men's sins and shields 

Been lost in Meles flowing ; 
Or poet Plato, had the undim, 
Unsetting godlight broke on him. 

AN ISLAND. 



November 25. 

Born.— 'Lopez de la Ve^a, 1562. 

Charles Kemble, 1775. 

Henry Mayhew, 1812. 
Died. — Andrea Doria, 1560. 

Edward Alleyn, 1626. 

John Tillof son, 1694. 

Isaac Watts, 1748. 

Richard Glover, 1785. 

John Gibson Lockhart, 18 

Angus B. Reach, 1856. 



November 26. 



Born. — Sir James Ware, 1594. 
Died. — John Spottiswood, 1639. 

Philip Quinault, i688. 

John Elwees, 1789. 

Marshal Nicholas Soult, 1850, 

Vincenz Priessnitz, 1851. 



339 



November 27. 

Oh, shame to poet's lays, 

Sung for the dole of praise — 
Hoarsely sung upon the highway 
With that obolum da uiihi ! 

Shame, shame to poet's soul 

Pining for such a dole, 
When Heaven-chosen to inherit 
The high throne of a chief spirit ! 

Sit still upon your thrones, 

O ye poetic ones ! 
And if, sooth, the world decry you, 
Let it pass unchallenged by you ! 

A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. 



November 28. 

We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or hear Thee 

in the wind ; 
Our cedars must fall round us, ere we see the light 

behind : 
Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need Thee 

on that road : 
But wo being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not 

on God. 

A LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY. • 



November 27. 

Born. — Madame de Maintenon, 1635. 

Robert South, 1710. 

John Murray, 1778. 
Died. — Horace, b. c. 8. 

Clovis, 511. 

Basil Montagu, 1851. 



NOVEMBER 28. 

Born.— Wc\or Cousin, 1792. 

Died. — Edward Plantagenet, 1499. 

Louis Dominic Cartouche, 17210 

Charles Duller, 7848. 

Washington Irving, 1859. 

Baron Bunsen, i860. 



341 



November 29. 

The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise ; 

I barter curl for curl upon that mart, 

And from my poet's forehead to my heart, 

Receive this lock which outweighs argosies — 

As purely black, as erst, to Pindar's eyes, 

The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart 

The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, 

Thy bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise. 

Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black ! 

Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, 

I tie the shadow safe from gliding back. 

And lay the gift where nothing hindereth, 

Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack 

No natural heat till mine grows cold in death. 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
o-^* — 

November 30. 

O Heart ! O Love— I fear 
That Love may be kept too near. 
Hast heard, O Heart, that tale, 
How Love may be false and frail 

To a heart once holden dear ? 
— *' But this true Love of mine 
Clings fast as the clinging vine, 
And mingles pure as the grapes in wine." 
Heart, wilt thou go? 
— " No, no ! 
Full hearts beat higher so." 

CALLS ON THE HEART. 



November 29. 

Born. — Sir Philip Sidney, 1554. 

Dr. Peter Heylin, 1600. 

John Ray, 1628. 
Z>2V^.— Philippe Le Bel, 1314, 

Cardinal Wolsey, 1530. 

Frederick, Elector Palatine, 1632. 

Anthony a Wood, 1695. 



November 30. 

Z>zV^.— Jonathan Swift, 1667. 

John Toland, 1669. 

Mark Lemon, 1809. 
Died. — John Selden, 1654. 

Marshal Maurice Saxe, 1750. 

James Sheridan Knowles, 18620 



343 



December i. 

Ha, Snow ! 
And art thou fallen so ? 
Thou, who wast enthroned stately 
All along my mountains lately ? 

Holloa, thou world-wide Snow ! 

Art thou wasted so ? 
With a little bough to catch thee, 
And a little bee to watch thee ? 

A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. 



December 2. 

I have foreknown 
Clearly all things that should be ; nothing done 
Comes sudden to my soul — and I must bear 
What is ordained with patience, being aware 
Necessity doth front the universe 
With an invincible gesture. 

PROMETHEUS BOUND. 



344 



December i. 

Born. — Princess Anna Comnena, 1083. 
Died. — Pope Leo X., 1521. 

Susanna Centlivre, 1723. 

Ebenezer Elliott, 1849. 



December 2. 

Born. — Francis Xavier Quadrio, 1695. 
Z>zVaf.— Hernando Cortes, 1547. 

St. Francis Xavier, 1552. 

Gerard Mercator, 1594. 

Amelia Opie, 1853. 



345 



December 3. 

Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he, 
Who first within his spirit knew 
And with his tongue declared it true. 
That love comes best that comes unto 

The equal of degree ! 
And that the poor and that the low. 
Should seek no love from those above 
Whose souls are fluttered with the flow 
Of airs about their golden height, 
Or proud because they see arow 
Ancestral crowns of light. 

PROMETHEUS BOUND. 



December 4. 

And Drummond, the over-praised and the under- 
praised, — a passive poet, if we may use the phrase- 
ology — who was not careful to achieve greatness, 
but whose natural pulses beat music, and with whom 
the consciousness of life was the sentiment of 
beauty. 

THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 



346 



December 3. 

Born. — Luigi Pulci, 1431. 

Robert Bloomfield, 1766. 
Died. — Alexander Farnese, 1592. 

Giovanni Belzoni, 1823. 

John Flaxman, 1826. 

Robert Montgomery, 1855. 

Christian Rauch, 1857. 



December 4. 

Born. — Thomas Carlyle, 1795. 

Dr. John Kitto, 1804. 
D zed.— Cardinal Richelieu, 1642. 

William Drummond, 1649= 

Thomas Hobbes, 1679. 

John Gay, 1732. 



347 



December 5. 

I would not play earth's winter out, 
As thou ; but gird my soul about, 
And live for life past death and doubt. 

Then sing, O singer ! — but allow 
Beast, fly and bird, called foolish now, 
Are wise (for all thy scorn) as thou ! 

WISDOM UNAPPLIED. 



December 6. 

What time that yellow leaf was green 

My days were gladder ; 
But now, whatever Spring may mean, 

I must grow sadder. 
Ah me ! a leaf with sighs can wring 

My lips asunder — 
Then is mine heart the weakest thing 

Itself can ponder. 



THE WEAKEST THING. 



348 



December 5. 

Born. — Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, 1661. 
Died. — Sir Henry Wotton, 1639. 

Johann Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart, 1792. 



December 6. 

Born. — Baldassarre Castiglioni, 1478. 

George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, 1608. 

Rev. Richard Harris Barham, 1788. 
Died. — Nicholas Rowe, 171 8. 

Catharine Clive, 1785. 



349 



December 7. 

Born. — Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, 1598, 
Died.— C'xcero^ b. c. 43. 

Algernon Sidney, 1683. 

Marshal Ney, 1815. 

Dr. John Aiken, 1822. 



December 8. 



^^r;^.— Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542. 

Charles Went worth Dilke, 1789. 
Died. — Richard Baxter, 1691. 

Barth^lemi d'Herbelot, 1709. 

Thomas De Quincey, 1859. 



351 



December 7. 

So, of men, and so, of letters — books are men of 

higher stature, 
And the only men that speak aloud for future tin es 

to hear ; 
So, of mankind in the abstract, which grows slowly 

into nature. 
Yet will lift the cry of ** progress," as it trod from 

sphere to sphere. 

LADY GE:?ALD1Ne's COURTSHIP. 



December 8. 

O cold white moonlight of the north, 

. Refresh these pulses, quench this hell ! 

O coverture of death drawn forth 

Across this garden-chamber. . well ! 
But what have nightingales to do 

In gloomy England, called the free, 
(Yes, free to die in ! . .) when we two 

Are sundered, singing still to me ? 
And still they sing, the nightingales. 

BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES, 



December 9. 
He was Agonistes building up, instead of pulling 
down ; and his high religious fortitude gave a charac- 
ter to his works. He stood in the midst of those whom 
we are forced to consider the corrupt versers of his 
day, an iconoclast of their idol rhyme, and protest- 
ing practically against the sequestration of pauses. 
His lyrical poems, move they ever so softly, step 
loftily, and with something of an epic air. His son- 
nets are the first sonnets of a free rhythm— and this, 
although Shakespeare and Spenser were sonneteers. 
His *' Comus " and '* Samson," and " Lycidas," how 
are we to praise them? His epic is second to 
Homer's, and the first in sublime efTects — a sense as 
of divine benediction flowing through it from end 
to end. 



THE BOOK OF THE POETS. 
-• ♦ • 



December 10. 

The end of woman (or of man, I think) 
Is not a book. Alas, the best of books 
Is but a word in Art, which soon grows cramped, 
Stiff, dubious-statured with the weight of years, 
And drops an accent or digamma down 
Some cranny of unfathomable time. 
Beyond the critic's reaching. Art itself, 
We've called the higher life, still must feel the soul 
Live past it. For more's felt than is perceived. 
And more's perceived than can be interpreted, 
And Love strikes higher with his lambent flame 
Than Art can pile the fagots. aurora leigh. 

352 



December 9. 

^^r;2.— Gustavus Adolphus, 1594. 

John Milton, 1608. 

William Whiston, 1667. 
Died.—Vope Pius IV. 1565. 

Sir Anthony Vandyck, 1641. 

John Rcinhold Forster, 1798. 



December io. 



Born. — Thomas Holcroft, 1745. 

General Sir William Fenwick Williams, 
1800. 
Died. — Casimir Delavigne, 1843. 

Dr. Southwood Smith, 1861. 



3'53 



December ii. 

The trees stand stiff and still at time of frost, 
If no wind tears them ; but, let summer come. 
When trees are happy, — and a breath avails 
To set them trembling through a million leaves 
In luxury of emotion. Something less 
It takes to move a woman : let her start 
And shake at pleasure, — nor conclude at yours. 
The winter's bitter, — but the summer's green. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



December 12. 

But if 'tis sweet for love to pay its debt, 
'Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



354 



December ii. 

Born. — Dr. William Cullen, 1712. 

Charles Wesley, 1757. 
Died.— Sir Ropier I'Estrange, 1704. 

Charles XII. of Sweden, 1718. 



December 12. 



Born. — Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 1731. 

Sir William Beechey, 1753. 

Archduchess Maria Louisa, 1791. 
Died. — Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 1751 

Colley Cibber, 1757. 

Sir Mark Isambard Brunei, 1849. 



355 



December 13. 

Parted. Face no more, 
Voice no more, love no more ! wiped wholly out 
Like some ill scholar's scrawl from heart and slate, — 
Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterly 
By some coarse scholar ! I have been too coarse, 
Too human. Have we business, in our rank, 
With blood i' the veins ? I will have henceforth 

none. 
Not even to keep the color at my lip. 
A rose is pink and pretty without blood ! 
Why not a woman? When we've played in vain 
The game, to adore, — we have resources still. 
And can play on at leisure, being adored. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



December 14. 

And since, Prince Albert, men have called thy spirit 

high and rare, 
And true to truth and biave for truth, as. some at 

Augsburg were — 
We charge thee by thy lofty thoughts, and by thy 

poet-mind 
Which not by glory and degree takes measure of 

mankind. 
Esteem that wedded hand less dear for scepter than 

for ring, 
And hold her uncrowned womanhood to be the royal 

thing. 

CROWNED AND WEDDED. 



December 13. 

Born. — Henri IV., 1553. 

Maximilian, Due de Sully, 1560. 

William Drummond, 1588. 
Died. — Conrad Gesner, 1565. 

Christian Furchlegott Gellert, i767„ 

Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1784. 



December 14. 

^<7?-«.— Michael Nostradamus, 1503. 

Tycho Brahe, 1546. 

Barthelemi d'Herbelot, 1625. 

James Bruce, 1730. 
Died. — Thomas Rhymer, 1713. 

Georg-e Washington, 1799. 

Conrad Malte Brun, 1826. 

Prince Albert, 1861. 



357 



December 15. 

What was in my thought ? 
To be your slave, your help, your toy, your tool. 
To be your love . . I never thought of that. 
To give you love . . still less. I gave you love ? 
I think I did not give you anything ; 
I was but only yours — upon my knees, 
All yours, in soul and body, in head and heart — 
A creature you had taken from the ground, 
Still crumbling through your fingers to your feet 
To join the dust she came from. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



December 16. 



We only, never call him fatherless 

Who has God and his mother. O my babe, 

My pretty, pretty blossom, an ill-wind 

Once blew upon my breast ! can any think 

Fd have another, — one called happier, 

A father's child, with father's love and race 

That's worn as bold and open as a smile, 

To vex my darling when he's asked his name 

And has no answer? What ! a happier child 

Than mine, my best — who laughed so loud to-night 

He could not sleep for pastime ? 

AURORA LEIGH. 

358 



December 15. 

Born. — George Romney, 1734. 

Jerome Bonaparte, 1784. 
Z>zVa^.— Izaak Walton, 1683. 

Benjamin Stillingfleet, 17710 

Mrs. Sarah Trimmer, 1810. 

Leon Fauchier, 1854, 



December i6. 

Born. — John Selden, 1584, 

George Whitehead, 17 14, 
Elizabeth Carter, 171 7. 
Jane Austin, 1775. 
Carl Maria von Weber, 17860 

Died. — Abbe Desfontaines, 1745. 
Thomas Pennant, 1798. 
Wilhelm Grimm, 1809, 



359 



December 17, 

The most utter wretch 
Will choose his postures when he comes to die, 
However in the presence of a queen : 
And you'll forgive me some unseemly spasms 
Which meant no more than dying. 

AUROKA LEIGH. 



December 18. 

Passioned to exalt 
The artist's instinct in me at the cost 
Of putting down the woman's — I forgot 
No perfect artist is developed here 
From an imperfect woman. Flower from root, 
And spiritual from natural, grade by grade 
In all our life. A handful of the earth 
To make God's image ! the despised poor earth, 
The healthy odorous earth, — I missed, with it. 
The divine Breath that blows the nostrils out 
To ineffable inflatus ; ay, the breath 
Which Love is. Art is much, but Love is more. 

AURORA LEIGH. 
360 



December 17. 

Born. — Anthony a Wood, 1632. 

Ludwig Beethoven, 1770. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, 1779. 
Z>zV«?.~Kausper Hauser, 1833. 

Maria Louisa, 1847. 



December i8. 

Born. — Prince Rupert, 1619. 

Died. — Soane Jenyns, 1787. 

Johann Gottfried von Herder, 1803, 
Dr. Alexander Adam, 1809. 
Samuel Rogers, 1855. 



361 



December 19. 

What he said, mdeed, 
I fain would write it down here like the rest 
To keep it in my eyes, as in my ears, 
The heart's sweet scripture, to be read at night 
When weary, or at morning when afraid, 
And lean my heaviest oath on when I swear 
That when all's done, all tried, all counted here. 
All great arts, and all good philosophies — 
This love just puts its hand out in a dream, 
And straight outreaches all things. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



December 20, 



I flung closer to his breast. 
As sword that, after battle, flings to sheath ; 
And, in that hurtle of united souls. 
The mystic motions which in common moods 
Are shut beyond our sense, broke in on us, 
And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin. 
And all the starry turbulence of worlds 
Swing round us in their audient circles, till. 
If that same golden moon were overhead, 
Or if beneath our feet, we did not know. 

AURORA LEIGH. 



December 19. 

Born. — Charles William Scheele, 1742. 

Captain William Edward Parry, 1790. 
Died. — Augustus Pugin, 1832. 

Joseph Mallard William Turner, 1851. 



December 20. 

Born. — John Wilson Croker, 1780. 
Died. — Bernard de Montfaucon, 1707, 
Thomas Hill, 1840. 



363 



December 21. 

Learn to win a lady's faith 

Nobly, as the thing is high, 
Bravely, as for life and death — 

With a loyal gravity. 
Lead her from the festive boards, 

Point her to the starry skies, 
Guard her by your truthful vy^ords, 

Pure from courtship's flatteries. 
By your truth she shall be true, 

Ever true, as wives of yore ; 
And her yes, once said to you, 

Shall be Yes for evermore. 

A lady's yes. 



December 22. 

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech 

The love I bear thee, finding words enough. 

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough» 

Between our faces, to cast light on each ? — 

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach 

My hand to hold my spirit so far off [proof. 

From myself . . me . . that I should bring thee 

In words, of love hid in me out of reach. 

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood 

Commend my woman-love to thy belief — 

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, 

And rend the garment of my life, in brief. 

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude. 

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief, 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 



December 21. 

Born,— ThomsiS a Becket, 1117. 
John Kepler, 1571. 

Died . — Giovanni Boccaccio, 1375. 

Catherine of Brag^anza, 1705, 
Arnauld de Berquin, 1791. 



December 22. 



Born. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823. 
/??>^.— Richard AUein, 1681. 

Michael Baron, 1729. 

Sir Philip Francis, 1818. 



365 



December 23. 

If thou must love me, let it be for naught 
Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
'' I love her for her smile. . her look. . her way 
Of speaking gently. . . for a trick of thought 
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day " — 
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
Be changed, or change for thee — and love, i 

wrought, 
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry — 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby ! 
But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 



December 24. 

Say never, ye loved once ! 

God is too near above, the grave, beneath, 

And all our moments breathe 

Too quick in mysteries of life and death, 

For such a word. The eternities avenge 

Affections light of range — 

There comes no change to justify that change. 

Whatever comes — loved once ! 

LOVED ONCE ! 

366 



December 23. 

Born. — Robert Barclay, 1648. 

Sir Martin Archer Shee, 17700 
Died. — William Davison, 1608. 

Michael Drayton, 1631. 



December 24. 

Born. — William Warburton, 1698. 

George Crabbe, 1754. 

Eugene Scribe, 1791. 
Died.—Y3iSco de Gama, 1525. 

Madame de Genlis, 1839, 

Hugh Miller, 1856. 



367 



. December 25. 

Art's a service, — mark : 
A silver key is given to thy clasp, 
And thou shalt stand unwearied, night and day, 
And fix it in the hard, slow-turning-wards, 
And open, so, that intermediate door 
Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form 
And form insensuous, that inferior men 
May learn to feel on still through these to those, 
And bless thy ministration. The world waits 
For help. Beloved, let us love so well, 
Our work shall still be better for our love, 
And still our love be sweeter for our work. 
And both commended, for the sake of each, 
By all true workers and true lovers born. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



December 26. 

" Subsists no law of life outside of life, 
No perfect manners, without Christian souls ; 
The Christ himself had been no Law-giver, 
Unless he had given the life, too, with the law," 
I echoed thoughtfully. " The man, most man. 
Works best for men : and, if most man indeed, 
He gets his manhood plainest from his soul : 
While obviously this stringent soul itself 
Obeys our old law of development ; 
The Spirit ever witnessing in ours. 
And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul. 
Evolving it sublimely. First, God's love." 

AURORA LEIGH. 



December 25. 

Born.— Isaac Newton, 1642. 

William Collins, 1720. 

Richard Porson, 1759. 
£>i'ed.—Sir Matthew Hale, 1676. 

Rev. James Hervey, 1758. 

Mrs. Hester Chapone, 1801. 



December 26. 



Born. — Thomas Gray, 1716. 

Died. — Antoine Houdart de la Motte, 1731. 

Joel Barlow, 1812. 

Stephen Girard, 1831. 



369 



December 27. 

•* And next/' he smiled, ** the love of wedded soul?>. 
Which still presents that mysteiy's counterpart. 
Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life, 
Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave 
A name to I human, vital, fructuous rose. 
Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves, — 
Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbor-loves. 
And civic, . . all fair petals, all good scents. 
All reddened, sweetened from one central Heart ! " 

AURORA LEIGH. 



December 28. 



Say over again, and yet once over again, 
That thou dost love me. Though the word re- 
peated 
Should seem a cuckoo-song, as thou dost treat it, 
Remember never to the hill or plain, 
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain. 
Come the fresh Spring in all her green completed ! 
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted 
By a doubtful spirit- voice, in that doubt's pain 
Cry . . speak once more . . thou lovest ! Who 

can fear 
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll — 
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year ? 
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — toll 
The silver iterance ! — only minding, Dear, 
To love me also in silence, with thy souL 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
370 



December 27. 

Born. — Jacques Bernouilli, 1684. 

Dr. Conyers Middleton, 1683. 

Arthur Murphy, 1727. 
Died. — Pierre Ronsard, 1585. 

Thomas Guy, 1714. 

John Wilkes, 1797. 

Dr. Hugh Blair, 1800. 

Charles Lamb, 1834. 



December 28. 

Born. — Thomas Henderson, 1798. 

Alexander Keith Johnstone, 1704. 
Z>zV^.— Pierre Bayle, 1705. 

John Logan, 1788. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1859. 



371 



December 29. 

And could I bear to sit alone 
'Mid nature's fixed benignities, 

While my warm pulse was moving ? 
Too dark thou art, O glittering sun, 
Too strait ye are, capacious seas. 
To satisfy the loving ! 

SABBATH MORNING AT SEA. 



December 30. 

This nature, though the snows be down, 
Thinks kindly of the bird of June. 
The little red hip on the tree 
Is ripe for such. What is for me, 
Whose days so winterly go on ? 

No bird am I to sing in June, 
And dare not ask an equal boon. 
Good nests and berries red are Nature's 
To give away to better creatures — . 
And yet my days go on, go on. 

DE PROFUNDIS. 

372 



December 29. 

Born.— Sir Archibald Alison, 1792. 
Died, — Dr. Thomas Sydenham, 1689. 

Joseph Saurin, 1737. 

Jacques Louis David, 1825. 

T, R, Malthus, 1834, 



December 30. 



Born. — Sir John Holt, 1642. 

John Philips, 1676. 
Died. —Roger Ascham, 1568. 

Paul Whitehead, 1774, 



373 



December 31. 

I praise Thee while my days go on ; 

I love Thee while my days go on : 

Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost, 

With emptied arms and treasure lost, 

I thank Thee while my days go on. 

And having in Thy life-depth thrown / 

Being and suffering (which are one), 
As a child drops his pebble small 
Down some deep well, and hears it fall 
Smiling — so I. Thy days go on. 

DE PROFUNDIS. 




374 



December 31. 

Born. — Herrmann Boerhaave, t668. 

Charles, Marquis Cornwallis, 1738. 

Johann Caspar Spurzheim, 1776. 
Pied. —John Wycliffe, 1384. 

Robert Boyle, 1691. 

John Flamsteed, 1719. 

Jean Fran9ois Marmontel, 1799. 

William Gifford, 1826. 




375 



Index to Birthdays, 
A B 



Name. 



Page. 



Name. 



Page. 



Index to Birthdays, 
C D 



Index to Birthdays. 
E F 



Index to Birthdays, 
C D 



Index to Birthdays, 
E F 



Index to Birthdays, 
C H 



Index to Birthdays, 



Index to Birthdays, 
K L 



Index to Birthdays, 
M N 



Index to Birthdays, 
P 



Index to Birthdays, 
Q R 



Index to Birthdays, 
S T 



Index to Birthdays. 
U V 



Index to Birthdays. 
W X 



Index to Birthdays. 
Y Z 



/ / 



2 / 



hi^ 



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